Military

DATE=10/27/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CONGO / CIVILIANS UNDER SIEGE (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-268517

BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Humanitarian activists warn that the civilian population in eastern and western Kasai region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is under siege. Lisa Schlein reports a delegation has come to Geneva from Kasai to urge the international community to put pressure on the D-R-C and foreign governments whose troops are fighting there to let humanitarian assistance reach the civilian victims.

TEXT: A delegation of two doctors and a Roman Catholic Bishop have come from Kasai in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to alert the world that millions of civilians are under siege. They are encircled by the occupying armies of Rwanda, Uganda, Zaire, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and the D-R-C, itself. These armies are mainly concentrated around eastern Kasai, which is rich with diamond mines.

Genevieve Jourdan represents the Association of World Citizens, a private humanitarian group, which is hosting the Kasai delegation. Dr. Jourdan says people in Kasai have been living under occupation since October 1998. She says they are victims of widespread atrocities. She says malaria and tuberculosis are rampant. Dr. Jourdan says diseases thought to have disappeared, such as leprosy, typhoid and river blindness now have come back in a more virulent form.

///JOURDAN ACT ///

The user consequence from the army is they have priority in all access to medicine, to medical treatment, free treatment and, of course, they are taking the little food that can be still cultivated. And, that is really a big problem.

/// END ACT ///

Dr. Adele Yenyihadja practices in a hospital in Tshombe. It is the only hospital available to serve one-and-one-half-million-people. She says the hospital lacks everything.

/// YENYIHADJA ACT, IN FRENCH, FADE UNDER ///

Dr. Yenyihadja says the hospital has no surgeon, no primary health care, and no medicine. It does not even have a microscope or surgical equipment.

While in Geneva, Dr. Yenyihadja has been learning to perform certain surgical procedures on women who now are without help. Dr. Jourdan says the international community must pressure those governments whose armies are fighting in the Congo to stop violating the rights of civilians.

/// 2ND JOURDAN ACT ///

We want to show them that we won't accept any longer to see that population exterminated through starvation and disease.

///END ACT///

Dr. Jourdan says the government of Laurent Kabila refuses to allow medicine and other goods to go to Kasai, fearing that these supplies might end up in rebel hands. (Signed)

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