ICRC barge reaches Kisangani with critical water treatment supplies

A barge chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reached Kisangani in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with some 280 mt of supplies which will provide the city's 600,000 inhabitants with clean water for about eight months. The ICRC reported that the cargo, which arrived on Tuesday, consisted mainly of supplies for the city's water board, and included calcium hypochlorite, aluminium sulfate and filtering sand. "Fortunately, by using the country's rivers, the ICRC can still deliver aid to the population of Kisangani, which was cut off from the rest of the country for many years owing to the conflict," ICRC said. It recalled that previously, such chemicals had been flown in from Goma airport, which proved very costly. With the eruption of nearby Mt Nyiragongo on 17 January 2002, a large section of Goma's runway was buried under lava, limiting its capacity to handle large cargo flights. Meanwhile, efforts continued to rehabilitate the Tshopo hydroelectric plant, Kisangani's main source of power, following a major breakdown on 28 September, which left the city without power and running water for several days. With financial and engineering personnel support from Belgium, the complete rehabilitation of one of Tshopo's damaged turbines was expected to take between nine to 12 months, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently reported.