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A convoy of four barges transporting a cargo of more than 1,000 mt of humanitarian supplies will leave Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for the northeastern city of Kisangani on Monday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has announced. The 1,700 km journey upriver will take three weeks to complete.
The convoy, escorted by the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, will make stops in the northern towns of Bumba, Lisala and Isangi, where some 25 percent of its cargo will be delivered. The remaining 75 percent will be discharged in Kisangani.
The supplies will consist of medicines, medical equipment, fuel, food, school supplies, construction material, cooking utensils, clothes, seeds and tools, and even bicycles.
The convoy will return to Kinshasa with 500 mt of food and clothes from areas "far enough from Kisangani so as not to destabilise the local market", OCHA noted.
The convoy has been assembled by a coalition of donors, UN agencies and nongovernmental organisations.
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