UNICEF sends 18 mt of clothes to 14,000 naked people hiding in forests

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) sent 18 mt of clothing on Tuesday to some 14,000 people who have been hiding for the past two years in forests around Businga, 450 km northeast of the town of Mbandaka in the northwestern Equateur Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because they had no clothes.

The shipment also included 300 bundles of second-hand clothing, 500 cartons of soap, 1,512 sheets of waxed cloth, medicine and fuel.

During a mission conducted to the region in July, UNICEF found that some 2,000 families deprived of clothing hiding in the forest, even though armed combat had not taken place for the past two years in the region, which is controlled by Jean-Pierre Bemba's Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC).

"The situation is very much the same in many other locations of this province, such as in Bosobolo and Budinga, where naked people sometimes venture out from the forest, but prefer to avoid public areas because of their nudity," Doudou Lwemba Luvungu, UNICEF’s deputy emergency administrator in the Congo, told IRIN.

According to UNICEF, these people had fled fighting in their villages, and since seen their living conditions deteriorate to such a point that their clothing completed deteriorated to shreds. While some of the people who had been hiding in the forest eventually went to Bundinga, the closest village, their situation was scarcely better than the 14,000 who remained hidden in the forest.

"They believe they are dressed, even though they have only enough clothing to cover their private parts," Sizanne Katajunga, UNICEF emergency programmes assistant, told IRIN upon conclusion of the mission.
The 2,000 families living in the forest, however, lack even this little bit of clothing, remaining naked. A solution found by some of those who have returned to the village is to share the little clothing that remains.

"If a man leaves the village to run errands with his bit of clothing, others have to await his return so they can go out in public with that same little piece of clothing," Katajunga said. "It is an indescribable situation."

Meanwhile, the sanitation situation of these 2,000 families was found to be equally deplorable: they have not even seen a bar of soap for more than two years.
"Their bodies are covered in sores, they can not bathe and they are in a situation whereby they cannot visit public places - like schools for the children; they are so ashamed of being seen naked," Katajunga said.

The 18 mt of goods arrived in the northeastern Congolese city of Gbadolite on Tuesday, en route for Businga and Budinga.