Caritas gives 214 mt of humanitarian aid to inland residents

A barge chartered by the Roman Catholic relief agency, Caritas, left Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on Wednesday with 214 mt of assorted items of humanitarian aid destined for thousands of needy people inland, Monsignor Louis Nzala, president of Caritas-Congo, told IRIN.

Of this amount, the German government had donated through Caritas Germany 115 mt of cement, 95 mt of agricultural implements and four tonnes of fishing material, Nzala said. These materials would benefit thousands of households, farmers and some 800 fishermen, state-owned Radio-Television Nationale Congolaise reported. Caritas-France and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) had contributed medicines, salt and women's clothes, while the remaining Caritas chapters had provided 150 bicycles for distribution, 12 mopeds, and 30 cubic metres of petrol, Nzala said.

The barge will make its 20-day journey to Kisangani (Orientale Province) with stops at the River Congo destinations of Makanza, Lisala, Lolo - in Equateur Province, controlled by the Ugandan-backed Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo; and at Isangi in an area controlled by the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie. "The barge will return to Kinshasa with agricultural produce, bought at the port stops, for distribution to vulnerable people in the capital," he said.

The German government, Nzala added, had contributed 50 percent of Caritas's 1.48 million euro (US $1.47 million) budget for humanitarian aid in the country. Another 40 percent had come from Caritas chapters in Austria, Australia, France, Ireland, Italy and Spain, and CRS-Congo. The UN World Food Programme and UN Children's Fund had provided the remaining 10 percent.