ICRC delivers aid for 50,000 in northern Katanga

With assistance of local volunteers from the Red Cross Society of the DRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conducted a relief operation at the end of August on behalf of 8,200 families (some 50,000 people) in and around Kabalo, in northern Katanga province, the ICRC recently announced. Supplies including seeds, hoes, blankets, cooking pots and soap flown in by a Hercules cargo plane were delivered to beneficiary families.

According to the ICRC, the people of Kabalo have been largely isolated in the three years since the outbreak of war in the DRC, surviving by means of agriculture and fishing, and ultimately had to resort to consuming their seed reserves. In addition, the railroad linking Kabalo and Lubumbashi (the second-largest city in the country) was cut by the front line, part of the town’s infrastructure was destroyed and commercial activity on the Congo river decreased. ICRC Hercules relief operations in the region were scheduled to continue in Nyunzu and Manono, with all aid distributions due to be completed in early September.