Hunger threatens IDPs despite start of rebel troop withdrawals

Tens of thousands of displaced residents of the northeastern town of Mambasa are threatened by hunger, even though three rebel groups have begun to withdraw from the area, according to the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), known as MONUC.

"There are no more than 300 people remaining in Mambasa. It is a ghost town, because its residents are still hiding in the forest waiting for the rebel groups to leave," Patricia Tome, MONUC's chief of public information, said at a news conference in the capital, Kinshasa, on Wednesday. About 30,000 people normally live in Mambasa.

"It is now the harvest season, but the population does not have access to its fields, and will therefore depend entirely on international humanitarian aid - but this must be sent as soon as possible," she said.

The heads of the three rebel movements - Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), Roger Lumbala of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-National (RCD-N), and Mbusa Nyamwisi of the RCD-Kisangani-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-K-ML) agreed in the northwestern DRC town of Gbadolite on 30 December to withdraw their forces to the positions they held prior to the most recent outbreak of hostilities.

The ceasefire was brokered by MONUC's head, Amos Namanga Ngongi, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative to the DRC. It was signed in the presence of ambassadors representing permanent member states of the UN Security Council, as well as diplomatic representatives from Belgium and South Africa.

"The Armee patriotique congolaise [the armed forces of the RCD-K/ML] has withdrawn to within 50 km of Beni, and along the Beni-Mambasa axis, the troops [of RCD-N, supported by the MLC, and those of the rival RCD-K/ML] are presently separated by a distance of 60 km," said Tome, who added that the withdrawals were proceeding in an "efficient manner".

She said the MLC had told MONUC on Tuesday that it could complete the withdrawal of its troops in eight days.

The latest round of hostilities among the three rebel movements erupted only three days after the ceasefire was signed, and resulted in the new displacement of thousands of people. According to MONUC, some 130,000 people were already displaced in the surrounding region.