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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DRC: Another 35,000 displaced by ongoing fighting

NAIROBI, 6 January 2003 (IRIN) - Some 35,000 people fled heavy artillery fire around Makeke, on the border between North Kivu and the Ituri region of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, to Beni on 31st December 2002, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

"We see only part of the displaced population," Philippe Hamel, the MSF head of mission, said. "We fear that in total there might be over 155,000 displaced people in the areas between Butembo, Beni, Mambasa and Komanda alone."

Ongoing fighting and violence in the region were preventing MSF medical teams from accessing a large part of the population, the organisation reported, with tens of thousands of people remaining beyond reach. Dispensaries set up in early December to cater for 25,000 people were now stretched to serve 60,000. The health posts that had recently been reopened were now operating "far beyond full capacity", MSF said, adding that it was in the process of setting up hospital tents.

In less than a month, MSF teams had treated 33 children suffering from acute malnutrition and 13 rape victims. Moreover, measles had broken out in Mangina, where MSF said it was now vaccinating all patients during consultations.

Meanwhile the leader of rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-National, Roger Lumbala, had said the two priests his organisation abducted on the 31 December would "soon be released", the Italian missionary news agency, MISNA, reported on Monday. Lumbala had described the two - an Italian and a Congolese national - as his "guests" in Mambasa, a town under the control of the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo.

Themes: (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs

[ENDS]

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