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Congo-Brazzaville Humanitarian organisations help out locally |
COOPERATION
Humanitarian organisations coming to the aid of the Congolese people, victims
of civil wars,
tackle the first change in their mission policy, by going
to help the villagers
on their own doorsteps, in their own localities
During the 1998-99 war, several aid agencies provided help for thousands of displaced Congolese. In north Brazzaville, makeshift centres were opened to receive people from the southern districts of the capital, and the villagers from the Pool region, at that time victims of the war. But until December 1999, these agencies had no access to the areas suffering conflict because of the lack of security.
Shortly after the agreements were signed calling for a cease-fire and ending hostilities, at the end of last year, the southern regions were opened up again. This situation allowed humanitarian organisations such as Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) (France and Holland), Action against Hunger, the Medical Aid Committee, Caritas, the International Committee of the Red Cross, to expedite help to the population of the regions of Bouenza, Lekoumou, Niari and Pool, electoral strongholds of Pascal Lissouba and Bernard Kolelas.
Today, with the presence of aid workers in the villages, the people who hesitated to leave the forest are encouraged to return en masse to their homes. They are even eager to work hand-in-hand with elements of the Congolese armed forces. As a result, the atrocities perpetrated on the civilian populations have all but ended. At Kindamba, the last stronghold of the resistance fighters in the Pool, more than 1,000 people were given medical care and nutritional monitoring at the centre in the town. At Mindouli, a further thousand attended the therapeutic nutritional centre run by Médecins sans Frontières. As for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), it is operating especially in formerly dangerous areas of the Pool such as Madzia, Matoumbou and Massembo Loubaki on the Congo-Océan railway. At Linzolo, 30 km south of Brazzaville, part of the hospital has been restored. According to Elisabeth Twinch, the ICRC‘s leader in Congo-Brazza: «The presence of humanitarian organisations in these razed villages, means that the people can be cared for in the field, rather than having to send them to Brazzaville».
Further away, at Sibiti, in the Lékoumou region on the border with the Gabon, MSF-Holland, overwhelmed by the extent of the work, had to limit its intake to 150 patients a day. The Medical aid committee is concentrating its efforts on Dolisie, the third-largest town in Congo-Brazza, badly hit by the fighting. It has already restored some of the paediatric and surgery buildings. The electricity and hydraulic systems have also been brought back into operation.
Restarting agriculture
Alongside healthcare, the humanitarian organisations have also distributed hoes, machetes, seed, etc. to help the peasants to return to agricultural work after being stripped of their possessions. These actions have caught the Congolese authorities’ attention. Mr Ernest Stéphane Mouïtaya, director-general of the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Aid, does not try to hide his satisfaction: «The immediate help given to victims of war by humanitarian organisations in remote villages, encourages reintegration and re-establishment of the villagers in their own place». He stresses that if emergency humanitarian aid stopped in Congo-Brazza, it would encourage another exodus to the capital.
However, the aid agencies working in the southern areas of Congo-Brazza are not development agencies. Thus, as the population is reinstated in the areas where there was fighting, the task of these agencies is coming to an end. In the field, the aid agencies did not collaborate very much with local cooperatives and associations, which were blamed for a certain lack of experience in humanitarian action and misappropriation of aid.
But these agencies, used to rushing to the aid of areas threatened by war or natural disaster, have been a real lifeline for many unemployed young people. «Working for the ICRC», says Richard, «I was well paid and I gained professional experience which will help me in the future».
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