According to UN figures, some 250,000 people in the provinces of North and South Kivu have been displaced since mid-January following a military operation targeting the FDLR rebel group. This is the equivalent to the numbers displaced last autumn when intense fighting broke out, with the newly displaced hidden in far and remote areas, the international aid agency said.
Marcel Stoessel, Head of Oxfam in the Democratic Republic of Congo said:
"The war is far from over for ordinary Congolese. These terrible human tragedies are happening in remote areas far away from television cameras, but this does not make the suffering less real for those concerned.
"Homes and shops are being looted and ransacked, women and girls are being raped, and civilians are being forced to flee, many for the third or fourth time. We are helping them pick up the pieces by increasing our emergency work. It is tragic to see Congo's civilians caught up in this awful violence yet again."
There also have been reports of armed men committing reprisal killings of civilians, blocking off roadways, in some cases burning down houses and chasing people away. In parts of Lubero, where most people are subsistence farmers, civilians can barely access their fields to harvest due to widespread insecurity and looting.
With the operations against the FDLR set to expand to South Kivu, there are mounting concerns for civilians there, several tens of thousands of whom have already been forced from their homes. Although, according to the UN, some 300,000 other people have returned to their homes in parts of the North Kivu, the calm in some areas, such as Rutshuru, has been accompanied by renewed insecurity in others, such as Lubero and Walikale.
Oxfam is developing a flexible response to the new crisis that can provide water, sanitation and life-saving hygiene promotion to dispersed groups of people on the move, as well as larger groups of people sheltering in specific areas. Fighting and insecurity has hampered humanitarian access this year, and a quicker and lighter response is required to reach people during windows of opportunity. Throughout eastern DRC, Oxfam is already assisting half a million people, and as a result of the scale up the agency will reach 650,000 people, despite ongoing security challenges. Teams have been sent to Lubero in North Kivu and Bukavu in South Kivu to plan the scale-up. In Lubero, Oxfam is already providing clean water and basic sanitation to 40,000 people newly displaced by the fresh fighting, especially to combat epidemics.
Stoessel continued:
"All parties to the conflict—including the government armed forces as well as militia groups—have to live up to their responsibility under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and to provide humanitarian agencies safe access to the civilians in need."
Oxfam said a lack of peacekeeping resources on the ground was also hampering efforts to protect civilians.
The Head of Oxfam International's New York office, Nicole Widdersheim, said, "More than four months after the UN Security Council approved 3,000 additional peacekeepers, not one extra soldier has arrived. Until the reinforcements come, MONUC needs to ensure that the troops on the ground are doing all in their power to protect people. Civilians need more foot patrols in towns and along the main roads in order to be kept as safe as possible."
With the UN Security Council set to discuss the MONUC peacekeeping force on Thursday this week, Oxfam is urging world leaders to mark the occasion by rapidly providing the extra troops needed. It also called on them to ensure that existing resources are deployed to the most insecure locations, so as to more effectively protect civilians.
]]>The team are training the hygiene promotion committees today in Mugunga camp today. The training is going well, but the team was called back into town early because of security concerns.
I wonder how many people died in the fighting over the last couple of days. The figure generally quoted of 5.4 million deaths (most due to the resulting lack of access to water and health services) due to the conflict over the last ten years just got bigger. The political history and current situation is very complex, with no simple solution.
We heard that the CNDP rebels have captured the Rumangabo army base and Virunga national park, which is home to the mountain gorillas, and today they attacked Kibumba, which is reported to be almost empty. The population of the town and the camps—around 30,000 people—has moved down to Kibati, 12 miles north of Goma. The Congolese government soldiers are fleeing, leaving MONUC [the United Nations mission in the Congo] to protect Goma. Many of the wounded are unable to get to the hospital.
The Mugunga camps currently have enough fuel to pump water until the weekend, but as there is a possibility that the security situation will deteriorate, so we're taking enough fuel out to them to last another week in case we get cut off from the camps.
Humanitarian agencies will need to get together tomorrow to decide how to act. Thousands of people demonstrated outside the MONUC base today, saying that the peace keepers are failing to protect the people here. We closed the office early. MONUC were told to stay in their base.
The MONUC commander has resigned.
This morning we have a security briefing. The shops and banks closed yesterday and are still closed today. The banks have removed all the money; they would be a prime target if Goma did get attacked. Our staff tell us they feel safer when they have some money in the house to give to the soldiers if their homes are targeted. When I stopped on the way home to buy bananas the women wanted to charge me extra because they thought I worked for MONUC.
I slept through the events of last night. Riots in the prison, where seven people were shot dead, about ten were recaptured and an unknown number escaped. I feel uneasy that escaped convicts could add to the unrest here! A doorman at a nightclub was also shot dead last night when he stopped someone with a firearm from entering. The situation in Goma could be described as tense!
We left work early again today. Only essential staff will be coming in tomorrow. Three international organizations have evacuated to Rwanda. This evening we hear that MONUC has retaken Kibumba and the situation now seems to be under control.
Today started as calmly as any other day. We went to the office as normal; there was less traffic and less staff, but otherwise it was a beautiful sunny day in Goma.
At 2:30pm, a message came over the radio that all NGO staff should remain in their bases. We immediately left the office, passing the gas station, which was full of Congolese army trucks filling up (then heading quickly in the opposite direction of the fighting). False rumors that the CNDP rebels had taken Goma airport created panic across Goma. MONUC have said they are protecting Goma as the Congolese government troops continue to flee. A vehicle, I think a taxi, lay on its side outside the hospital gate. I guess if you are going to have a nasty crash, that's not a bad place to do it.
All UN and international NGO staff are advised to go to the World Food Programme compound to plan a possible evacuation. I go home to pick up the bag that I packed last night (just in case!) and some food. As the afternoon passes and the sun goes down, the gunshots around the compound become more and more frequent. We are told that the fleeing army is looting town. I have never been this close to so much violence and gunfire. My mother phones, concerned; I hope that she cannot hear the fighting. I feel like we are a bunch of sitting ducks surrounded by armed troops. It is not safe to leave.
About 600 members of UN families, mainly women and children, are here with us. They take refuge in the large warehouse while we try, unsuccessfully, to fall asleep in the car. Before we settle down for the night, we hear that a ceasefire has been announced.
Thousands of the displaced are said to have fled to Kanyabayonga or to the Ugandan border. Oxfam will go and do an assessment to see what intervention is needed there.
Speaking to the public health team, they tell me that last night many people fled the camps where we work to hide in the fields. Nevertheless, there were still reports of rape and looting in the camps by the military. The health centers in the two Mugunga camps were reported to have been looted, though this has not been confirmed. Most people know someone who was killed in the violence last night in the town.
People continue to sleep in public buildings, with host families, and by the side of the road around Goma. We are busy planning how we can help them.
While the office in Goma remains closed, the staff that we have trained from the camps to pump and do water chlorination continue to do their work. The number of displaced people in the four Goma camps has remained stable—except for Mugunga 2, where some new arrivals are housed in large hangars—so our current water and sanitation provision is enough to provide for everyone living there. The water supply is fine and people in the camp continue to clean the toilets to stop the spread of disease.
But the army has set up four tents on the road to Buhimba camp; this is not good news for women there, who are often raped by armed men. I ask the public health team leader to ask the hygiene committee (made up of displaced people we work with in the camps) to broadcast by loud speaker the message that the women who have been raped have 72 hours to get to a health center to take anti-HIV medication.
Rather than spend another night in the car, international staff are temporarily relocated and spend the night in Rwanda.
The EU has pledged to send forces to reinforce the troops here. The Congolese are hopeful that they will arrive soon.
Some of the team attended a meeting in Goma to discuss the current humanitarian situation. Official UN figures are suggesting that 100,000 people have been displaced in the fighting of the past week.
The information that the IMC health center had been looted appears to be untrue, although both the Norwegian Refugee Council and ourselves have had supplies we keep in the camps stolen. Generally the camps seem to be returning to normal, although people are afraid.
Despite the American elections, the situation in the DRC is still the second news story on the television. The report shows the UN aid convoy that went to Rutshuru, an area under CNDP rebel control. There is also talk of the people starving due to the food crisis.
Despite the ceasefire, fighting continues in other parts of North Kivu, and although Goma is calm people are still nervous and afraid. The Prime Minister was in Goma today. We had a busy day planning our work and coordinating with the other agencies responding to the emergency in North Kivu.
For some strange reason there was only one news item all day today... The US has a new president! Joy and relief are visible across the globe.
Today we started our monthly soap distribution in the four camps where we work. We give soap to over 64,000 people as part of our cholera prevention work. We have also been visiting groups of displaced people in Goma and Kibati just a few hundred meters from the front line, home to thousands of people who have fled their homes and camps to escape the fighting in Kibumba. For many of them, this is the second or third time that they have been forced to flee.
Tomorrow we will find displaced people who were already community hygiene educators in their villages so that we can form new hygiene promotion committees here. Thousands of displaced people are staying with host families, in public buildings on porches, and under the stars (and we are in the rainy season!). When I spoke to the displaced people about their health, the illness they all talked about was diarrhea, particularly in young children. It is important that we start our hygiene promotion.
Today I am going south west to Kirotshe to do a public health assessment. Our first stop is a small camp of just over 4,000 people.
This camp looks different from the others. The latrines were full, so the people borrowed tools from the village and have started digging new pits, but there is a LOT of feces that are hard not to step in when you use the toilets. Our first job here will be to form hygiene committees who will teach their peers about why hygiene is important and mobilize this community to keep their latrines clean.
There is no source of water in the camp, but there is a tap in the village nearby, although it does not provide enough water for everyone so people here go to the lake to wash. We will need to train the community to construct private bathing areas and create a new water source.
People tell us that some women have been raped when they go to collect firewood for cooking. Where ever we go we see armed men: in the villages, on the road by the camps. While we walk around the camp we hear shooting and shelling from the hills behind. People seem nervous but they live with this every day. A visit to the health center shows that four cases of cholera have been diagnosed here in the past week.
On the way back to the office we stop at the health center in Sake. They have run out of the intravenous dehydration fluids needed to save the lives of people with severe diarrhea, so they have to send patients miles away to Kirotshe. I will follow this up tomorrow.
My day began with gruesome photos on the television of the bodies of people reportedly killed by CNDP rebels in Kiwanja. One woman gave the rebels the money they demanded but they still shot and killed her husband.
The public health team go out to Kibati to continue our work there, but they are forced to return to Goma by gunfire, which created huge panic amongst the displaced population there. Many were seen heading for the safety of Goma.
We are told by the UN to restrict movement and stay where we are.
]]>We had five staff there when the fighting broke out at 11:30 AM. They were beginning meetings with community members and were starting the digging of latrines. Then it happened. The shelling.
"It was between the volcano and the hill near the camp," said Herman, an Oxfam public health promoter, "about two kilometers away from the camp."
People were lining up to get their food distributions from the World Food Program and they suddenly scattered.
"They wanted to get to their shelters to grab their belongings," said Herman. "They knew they had to flee again."
The team reported that they saw one man in his forties crying. "I fled Kibumba camp and now they are chasing us again," he said. Another was more resigned, "We are used to this," he lamented. And sadly people are. Many people in the camp have fled for the third, fourth, fifth time.
Thousands ran toward Goma town. After a night of hiding with host families and in schools and churches, most have returned to the camp but remain scared and vulnerable. Even before this latest incident, the people in the camp were nervous. I can't even imagine the fear they feel now. The rebels have been pushed back northward, but there are just 700 meters between the positions of the rebels and the Congolese government forces. Oxfam is back there with teams today. These people need our help, but it is far from easy in the current insecure environment.
Last weekend, the UK Foreign Minister David Miliband and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner visited Goma. They came with much diplomatic fanfare and media attention, and they said good things. They called for urgent reinforcement of the UN peacekeeping troops, but they have failed to follow through and effectively protect civilians. Today, the European Union will meet to talk about the situation in the eastern Congo.
The people of Congo are still living on the edge with little protection. They urgently need the European Union to take action. Even before the fighting around Kibati, people were telling us about being attacked by armed groups when collecting firewood or food from the nearby fields.
While European Ministers are closeted in debating chambers today, hundreds of thousands of eastern Congolese will be eking out an existence in the region's squalid camps. They need real action, not another mountain of words. The EU must agree to send additional troops to support the UN in eastern Congo and must push for a ceasefire, so we can get aid to the people that desperately need it.
]]>Fidel had an 18-year-old brother who deserted the Mai-Mai, one of the eastern Congo's multitude of armed factions. Men from the group came looking for his brother at family home, but he wasn't there. Fidel was. They decided to take him instead.
"My mother begged and cried," he says. "The rebels said they'd spare me, if my mum paid them $100. But we were poor and didn't have the money."
As he was snatched away, his mother screamed. The soldiers said that they would kill her if she didn't shut up.
He still finds it difficult to play, he says. Even though he is now in safe place, he still has the memories.
"I used to carry ammunition for the soldiers as they fought on the front line. One day I saw 60 bodies dead in the battlefield. I knew then I needed to escape or I'd end up dead myself."
After six months of enduring beatings with sticks, Fidel managed to escape one night when the soldiers were sleeping. He ran two miles in darkness of the night until he reached the base of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission for Congo.
From there, he was taken to CAJED, a Congolese NGO that rehabilitates child soldiers and other vulnerable children, and helps them reintegrate back into the community. I am at the transitional center run by CAJED and UNICEF that aims to help the children come to terms with their trauma.
After they leave the center, CAJED keeps in contact with the boys and helps them adapt to civilian life. This is a difficult stage. In a country with grinding poverty and few job prospects, many child soldiers get re-recruited. CAJED's community work aims to prevent that, and Oxfam supports CAJED at this stage.
Alongside Fidel in the transitional center, I meet Michel. Michel wears a T-shirt with a rhino on it, and has flecks of vibrant green paint on his arms and forehead. He's been painting. But despite the familiar childhood activity he was in the midst of, his mood seems much darker than Fidel's. He spent four years with a rebel group and was forced to fight.
His story starts simply. He was abducted when he left his house to get some milk. He never returned. But then the horror escalates. Michel was taught to fight. He shot people and remembers jumping over bodies in the battlefield. His friend was taken prisoner by another armed group. They discovered him hanging from a tree with blood pouring from his ears and his nose. It is horrible to learn that a 12-year-old child has seen such scenes.
The stories of children like Fidel and Michel painfully underscore why we need to find an end to horrific violence that has plagued the eastern Congo for too long. Child protection agencies have reported that Mai Mai militia in the town of Rutshuru recruited 37 children into military service the week before last. An estimated 150 children have been forcibly recruited since heavy fighting resumed in August.
Congo's armed men need to put their weapons down and find a peaceful solution to this conflict. Five millionfour hundred thousand people have died in Congo's decade-long war. The people of eastern Congo have suffered too much. We need to push our politicians to keep up the diplomatic pressure and find a political solution to this harrowing war. Only then will we be able to confine the stories of Fidel and Michel to the history books.
Names have been changed to protect identities.
]]>Thousands more abandoned their villages and the temporary camps in which some were sheltering when fighting intensified in late October around Goma, the capital city of North Kivu Province directly across the border from Rwanda. The violence culminated in an armed stand-off outside the city on Oct. 29, and CNDP's call for a ceasefire. By November 7, that ceasefire was no longer holding.
The crisis has left the longer-term peace process—and a January ceasefire between the government and 22 armed groups—in shambles. The CNDP has claimed that the January peace agreement, which had been violated numerous times, favored the Congolese government and its forces.
The latest fighting follows more than a decade of conflict in the eastern provinces and stems back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. But many other factors contribute to the ongoing violence as well: weak state authority, the illegal exploitation of Congo's vast natural resources, and the free flow of arms across porous borders.
The result is disaster for the Congolese caught in the crossfire and suffering from the deprivation constant conflict brings. Humanitarian needs are escalating: The fighting forced some aid groups to suspend their operations, preventing life-saving help from reaching those who needed it. Since 1998, an estimated 5.4 million people have lost their lives to the conflict and the hunger and disease it unleashes.
In early November, Oxfam was already helping about 85,000 people, including 65,000 camped in four temporary settlements around Goma. The organization planned to help an additional 100,000 people in areas to the north and west of the city. Assistance has included the provision of clean water and sanitation services—essential in preventing the spread of waterborne diseases-- to those in the four camps. Oxfam has also been trucking water to 20,000 people in Kanyabayonga north of Goma.
Oxfam is calling for:
My neighborhood was one of the worst affected by the fighting, which went on all last night. About two kilometers from my house, the gunmen went into a compound and killed seven innocent civilians. Our neighbors were attacked by gunmen who came into their compound and robbed them, taking mobile phones and money. We were okay, but I found some bullets in my compound.
I was in the Oxfam office when the panic started yesterday. People saw the national army troops leaving Goma with their tanks and vehicles, and at the same time they saw the UN troops shifting civilians to a safer compound. No one informed the population about what was happening, and they thought the rebels were going to take control of Goma. People panicked.
Many people took advantage of the panic yesterday to make trouble. They looted shops and robbed families. It was a mixture of people fighting, criminals, and undisciplined soldiers, using small arms like AK-47s. But in other areas there was a deployment of national army units who were disciplined and protected the people. I haven't seen UN soldiers anywhere myself.
Today, it's calm and very quiet. Usually the traffic here starts at six in the morning, but I looked out at 10AM and all I saw was one motorbike. The shops are all shut. Life hasn't started up yet.
A lot of people are displaced and are living in the suburbs of Goma in very harsh conditions, and the fighting is making those conditions even worse because there's no access for humanitarian workers.
In particular, one group of displaced people has now been forced to move for the third time in a couple of months. They are living in schools and hospitals, or with host families in and around Goma. They desperately need water, food, and shelter. There's no health care or medicines. People are living in the open air, and if they do get a little food it's not enough to feed the whole family.
This current crisis has made it harder for Oxfam to respond. We are watching the situation and I'm going out this afternoon to check out our work in the camps.
]]>In the DRC, increasing violence has forced people to flee from their homes, and led to the deaths of almost 1,500 people a day. Though no other conflict causes that kind of death rate, Oxfam's workers hear similar stories of murder, rape, and displacement from men and women from Colombia to Sudan every day. Sixty years after the main Geneva Conventions enshrined civilians' rights to protection, they are violated in every current conflict.
Some states and non-state actors choose to kill civilians, or pursue strategies in which civilians are too likely to die. Some governments choose to protect their citizens: to keep them safe. Some do not protect all of them, or not well enough. There are, however, successful examples of protecting civilians that show what governments and others can do when they choose to.
They have an interest in protecting civilians, because mass atrocities fuel the conflicts that, in an interdependent world, create security threats that cannot be contained. And an increasing number of governments have a "moral interest" too, because their electorates expect them to help prevent, not just condemn, the atrocities they see beamed around the world through modern information technology.
To do so, they need to make four key changes.
"I'm not famous," said the slogan on his T-shirt.
And that's probably why you haven't heard very much about Milongo's problem'or the problem of countless Congolese women caught in a war that has used their bodies as a battlefield. Rape has ruined their lives. And now, it's creeping into their villages, too, corroding what's left of community life after so many years of conflict.
But since it's happening in a place that's far away, in villages whose names we can hardly pronounce, we don't pay attention. We should—because it's a horror that stalks us, too. About 132,000 women a year in the United States report they are victims of rape, or attempted rape, says the National Organization for Women. That's one of the reasons Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994—to combat sexual assault.
Now, there's a new protection bill set for debate in Washington. This one would take the first steps toward guarding the safety of women everywhere—even in countries where governments are not up to the task. Proposed by US Senators Joseph R. Biden and Richard Lugar, the International Violence Against Women Act would require the development of a five-year strategy—supported by a $175 million annual investment—to support programs targeting violence against women. Among them would be public awareness campaigns and a strengthening of criminal and civil justice systems.
Additionally, through increased training for aid workers and expanded reporting requirements, the bill would tackle the violence women and girls suffer during humanitarian crises and conflict—times when women are particularly vulnerable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Democratic Republic of Congo. John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary for humanitarian affairs, told a reporter last October that the sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world.
But what makes these attacks even more insidious is the consequence of speaking out about them: There is danger in challenging Congo's culture of impunity. Justine Masika lives with it daily—behind the barbed wire wall erected around her house to keep her safe. She is the head of a Goma-based group that has helped more than 7,000 women who have suffered from sexual violence. Last year, soldiers punished her for her truth-telling and advocacy. They invaded her house and attacked her daughters.
But Masika is not alone. Others, like Lamia Milongo, are fighting back, too. When the soldier abducted his 12-year-old daughter to claim her as his "wife," Milongo put his own safety aside and went in pursuit. He rescued her and returned her home unharmed. But the daughter of his neighbor was not so lucky. Her rescue came too late. Now, at 15, she is pregnant, shamed, and facing a life of hardship and poverty since in Congolese culture women who have been raped are often cast off by their communities.
Sexual violence is a plague the world should be rid of. Mothers like Masika need our help. So do fathers like Milongo. We took an important step here in the US in 1994. Now it's time to take the next one—into our global community—with passage of the International Violence Against Women Act.
]]>The two agreements, together with recommendations from the Conference on Peace, Security and Development in North and South Kivu organized by the government in January 2008, form the basis of the Congolese government?s peace program for eastern Congo, known as the Amani Program, led by the national coordinator Abbé Apollinaire Malu Malu. The agreements provided an important foundation for peace. The signatories agreed to a ceasefire and committed to protect civilians and respect international humanitarian and human rights law.
In July 2008, a group of local and international non-governmental organizations established the Congo Advocacy Coalition to track progress on these commitments and focus attention on areas where improvements are urgently needed. Specifically the coalition decided to track six key commitments related to protection of civilians. These include:
Attacks against civilians and their property occurred at an alarming rate in the six months following the signing of the various peace agreements. Assessments conducted by different organizations in eastern Congo indicated that the civilian population continues to experience widespread attacks, sexual violence, looting, and forced labor.
More than 200 civilians were killed in indiscriminate firing by armed groups or as a result of summary executions in North Kivu, particularly in Masisi and western Rutshuru territories.
Sexual violence against women and girls has continued at its previous horrifying rate since the peace agreement was signed. Women and girls were raped by combatants of all armed groups and soldiers of the Congolese army, as well as by civilians. Over 2,200 cases were registered in June 2008 in the province of North Kivu. One community in Rutshuru reported over 150 cases of rape in April alone.
Fighting and targeted attacks on civilians led to the displacement of nearly 100,000 civilians in North Kivu since January 2008 with another 50,000 displaced in South Kivu. The UN estimates a total of 1.1 million people are currently displaced in both provinces, including those who fled previous fighting. Nearly half of the newly displaced people in North Kivu fled from the Bukombo administrative area in Rutshuru. New displacements have also been registered in Masisi and southern Lubero territory, all areas that have been subject to fighting.
Many displaced people expressed a desire to return to their villages if security permitted, but very few have been able to do so. Those who have returned often spend the night in the forests surrounding their villages as a protective measure. Some returned only temporarily, fleeing again days or weeks later.
There has been little return of refugees from Rwanda, Uganda or Burundi into North and South Kivu. The Congolese government and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have not yet signed tripartite agreements with Rwanda, Uganda, or Burundi to facilitate the return of Congolese refugees from these countries. In July a working group was created to put in place the tripartite agreement with Rwanda and plan returns when the security situation permits.
Recruitment of combatants, both voluntary and forced, amongst a range of armed groups in North and South Kivu, continued despite the ceasefire and intensified during the past three months. Some of these groups were largely dormant before the peace talks. Former demobilized soldiers and combatants have been targeted for re-recruitment, raising concerns about the effectiveness and sustainability of previous demobilization programs.
While there are no reports of large-scale recruitment of children since the signing of the Goma agreement, sporadic recruitment by some armed groups has continued. Moreover, there has been limited progress on the demobilization of the estimated 2,500-3,000 children who remain in the ranks of armed groups and in some units of the Congolese army. Child protection agencies began screening troops for children in mid-April, but their activities stalled due to coordination issues between UN agencies, and only restarted in early July. Following two joint missions, a total of 47 children were separated from armed groups. Outside of these missions, at least a further 507 children have been demobilized since January. In June, the government launched a national program of ?zero tolerance? for the recruitment and use of children by armed groups and committed to taking further action on demobilizing all associated children.
Despite ongoing recruitment, 1,200 combatants in North Kivu responded to the call to lay down their weapons. From January to May 2008, according to officials in Goma, 282 CNDP combatants, 800 Mai Mai and PARECO combatants, and 156 Congolese combatants from the FDLR surrendered. Some were sent to army retraining (known as brassage) centers, but others, such as 334 Mai Mai Mongol combatants in the town of Bambu, were left for months without any assistance. Programs to assist demobilized combatants are not fully operational, contributing to serious delays in demobilizing combatants. A number who surrendered were sent to the military intelligence prison in Goma rather than being directed to demobilization programs. Many were detained for months without charge and were subjected to cruel and degrading treatment; a number were tortured.
Efforts have continued to encourage the remaining 6,000 FDLR combatants in eastern Congo to disarm and return to Rwanda. Since January, 301 FDLR combatants were demobilized. After talks with the Congolese government in Kisangani in late June, the FDLR splinter-faction, Rally for Unity and Democracy (RUD), agreed to demobilize 400 troops and repatriate to Rwanda, with the option of temporary relocation for some combatants within Congo.
Civilians are not allowed to move freely and often encounter improvised road blocks erected by armed groups or the Congolese army where they are subject to various forms of extortion. Civilians are forced to pay money or a percentage of their produce, sometimes called ?taxes?, either at such road blocks, when they go to the market, or as they return to their fields. Army soldiers and armed groups also confiscate electoral cards (which also serve as identity cards in Congo), and demand money in exchange for the return of the card.
At least 36 attacks on humanitarian workers were recorded in North Kivu since the signing of the Goma agreement, the majority being ambushes at gunpoint on main and remote roads. A total of 15 humanitarian workers were injured in these attacks. Two humanitarian staff were caught in the crossfire and wounded by bullets when an armed group attacked the Kinyandonyi displacement camp in Rutshuru territory. Humanitarian activity is temporarily suspended in certain areas following a number of attacks.
Despite the ongoing clashes some previously inaccessible areas are now receiving emergency assistance. However, other areas remain inaccessible, particularly around front lines and buffer zones. The picture is not a static one and generally the degree of accessibility changes according to the level of military or criminal activity which flares up along ever shifting axes.
Since mid-June access from Goma to Masisi town is severely hampered following several armed robberies of humanitarian staff on the main road. An estimated 186,000 people in Masisi are not currently receiving assistance, including 33,000 displaced persons in camps and thousands others who have sought refuge in host families.
In Rutshuru territory, several enclaves within the Bwito area, west of Nyanzale, are particularly unsafe and problematic to access. The civilian population there is often too scared to sleep in their villages and instead hide in the surrounding forests at night.
Impunity for human rights abuses is widespread in eastern Congo. Since January only a small number of perpetrators have been arrested for crimes of sexual violence and only a small number of Congolese soldiers and policemen have been tried and prosecuted for their crimes. Many women do not seek justice for the crimes they have suffered because they are afraid that the perpetrators will target them again should they escape from prison. Those who live in remote areas frequently have no access to judicial services.
No high ranking officials have been held to account for the serious crimes they or soldiers under their command have committed.
The Congo Advocacy Coalition makes the following recommendations to the parties to the peace agreements, the international facilitators, coordinators of the peace process and international donors: