First commercial convoy in four years leaves Kinshasa

The first commercial convoy on the Congo river since hostilities erupted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) four years ago left the capital port of Kinshasa on Saturday.

The two barges, carrying about 1,000 mt of logging equipment, fuel, and other commercial supplies, are headed due north to the towns of Lisala and Bumba in Equateur Province, a region controlled by the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), a former rebel group that signed a peace agreement with Kinshasa at the end of the inter-Congolese dialogue in Sun City, South Africa, in April.

The barges will be escorted by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the DRC (known by its French acronym, MONUC) to ensure security and to facilitate safe passage at checkpoints. The convoy is expected to reach Bumba within two weeks, after which it will return to Kinshasa with much-needed food supplies. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warned last week of caloric deficiencies and food insecurity among the poorest residents of the DRC capital.

"We hope this will help reunify the country and have a psychological impact on the population who will move throughout the country," the MONUC spokesman, Hamadoun Toure, told IRIN. He noted that the deal for the reopening the river to commercial convoys had been reached at the inter-Congolese dialogue by the Kinshasa government, MLC and the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma).

However, although it has granted access for humanitarian deliveries to the nearly 25 percent of the navigable Congo river within the territory it controls, RCD-Goma has yet to allow civilian and commercial navigation from territory controlled by Kinshasa and the MLC.

RCD-Goma refused to sign the peace agreement reached among Kinshasa, MLC, and a majority of political opposition and civil society representatives at the end of the inter-Congolese dialogue in April.