Urgent action needed to assist over 1 million Central Africans - UN relief official
10 August 2009 – While tensions in Africa’s Great Lakes region have eased in the past year, there are still serious issues to be dealt with, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, calling on leaders there to move quickly to carry out existing peace agreements.
Addressing the third summit of heads of State and government of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), taking place in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, Mr. Ban commended in particular the commitment of the leaders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to promote peace and stability in the region.
In a message delivered by his Special Envoy for the region, Olusegun Obasanjo, the Secretary-General welcomed last week’s summit between the Presidents of the two countries, as well as the exchange of their ambassadors.
“This is no doubt a result of the collective efforts of the two countries and the region,” he noted. “It is also an example of how the ICGLR can serve as an effective instrument for change.”
He also highlighted the 23 March agreements between the DRC Government and armed groups in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, and appealed to all parties to pursue the full implementation of the accords.
In addition, he drew attention to the Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region, which he described as “one of the most far-reaching agreements that the region has ever seen.”
Under the Pact, which entered into force in June 2008, countries of the region committed themselves to tackling the underlying causes of the many conflicts that have raged there in recent decades and to deal with key security, governance, development, humanitarian and social issues from a regional perspective.
“It is now crucial to move from commitment to implementation,” the Secretary-General said, adding that this requires strong leadership.
At the same time, Mr. Ban said the region still faces “profound” security, humanitarian, developmental and environmental challenges.
“I urge you as members of the ICGLR to make full use of this unique mechanism to quickly consolidate peace. This is, of course, an essential ingredient to sustainable development,” he stated.
The core members of the ICGLR are Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR), DRC, Kenya, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
In a related development, the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, held a meeting last week bringing together dozens of traditional leaders in the country’s troubled east to discuss the joint DRC-Rwanda military operation aiming to root out the notorious ethnic Hutu militia known as the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR).
The leaders from South Kivu province conferred on challenges, including how best to protect civilians, posed by the operation, known as Kimia II, which was launched earlier this year.
Also attending the two-day gathering was South Kivu Governor Louis Mudherwa, who stressed the Government’s commitment to help those forced to flee their homes by the fighting, asking the traditional leaders for their support in the peace process.
Last week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that the latest bout of fighting between DRC troops and the FDLR, along with their local allies, uprooted a further 35,000 people in South Kivu last month, bringing the total displaced there since January to 536,000. More than 1.8 million people are now internally displaced in the DRC’s east. 10 August 2009 – Urgent action by the international community is needed to assist humanitarian efforts in the Central African Republic (CAR), where conflict has left one-quarter of the population in need of assistance, a senior United Nations relief official said today.
“It’s not like any other humanitarian situation I’ve run across,” Catherine Bragg, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, told reporters in New York.
Ms. Bragg, who visited the country in late July, said the number of people affected directly or indirectly by the effect of conflict in CAR is estimated by the humanitarian community to be more than 1 million people – out of a population of 4 million.
She added that the CAR is one of the most impoverished countries in the world – second only to Sierra Leone by one measure – and remains beset by violence and widespread displacement in the north. This is in spite of some progress made last year with the Government embarking on a national dialogue and the signing of a peace agreement with rebel groups.
Most of the 1 million people in need of assistance are concentrated in the northern part of the country and amongst the affected population are 125,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 137,000 Central African refugees in Chad and Cameroon.
A major concern is the lack of funding for humanitarian work, she stressed, noting that funding has decreased significantly in 2009, compared to previous years. Current requirements amount to $97 million, of which $48 million remains outstanding. “Urgent action from the international community is required to support the efforts of humanitarian organizations,” stated Ms. Bragg.
The international community should also be encouraged to support the efforts of the Government to develop a legal framework to assist IDPs, she added. “I was actually struck by the lack of international pressure on the Government in terms of its responsibility to provide both humanitarian assistance and protection to displaced populations.”
Another major concern, she said, is lack of access to those in need, not just because of a lack of physical infrastructure, but because many people have fled their villages into the bush, sometimes just a few kilometres from their villages, and they are dispersed.
“This is a very traumatized population. Some of them have been displaced repeatedly in the past years,” said Ms. Bragg. “They live in fear of both the Government forces and any armed groups, and they live in totally deplorable conditions in the bush with very little basic necessities – no water, no food, no sanitation, no medical services [and] hardly anything to sustain themselves.”
Access is also hindered by the “unpredictable and volatile” security environment and, more recently, outright denial of humanitarian access by the national authorities, which she said were accusing some of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of supporting the rebels through humanitarian activities.
More recently, she added, humanitarian needs have increased due to attacks by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the south-east and a rise in malnutrition in the south-western part of the country.
The Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator met with some of the IDPs during her visit, which took her to the capital, Bangui, as well as the towns of Birao, Kabo and Paoua. She also met with President François Bozizé and Prime Minister Faustin-Archange Touadera, and members of UN agencies, international and local NGOs and the diplomatic community.
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