Levels of human suffering rise

Levels of human suffering continue to rise in the Great Lakes region - mainly in Burundi - where the numbers of internally displaced persons and refugees has risen slightly to three million and one million respectively, The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported. In a regional overview of the affected populations in the Great Lakes as of 31 September, OCHA reported that Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo remained the area of most concern, "where a lack of humanitarian access is still a major obstacle to effective assistance from the international community". In addition, it reported, there was widespread food insecurity across the entire region, due either to drought and heavy rains (as in Burundi and Rwanda) or to "man's own doing". It added that "huge displacements" of people throughout the region had meant that farms were neglected, resulting in reduced food supplies. The outcome of this has been malnutrition, and susceptibility to diseases such as meningitis, measles, malaria and cholera. Faced with this shortage, the starving populations have often resorted to eating seeds meant for planting crops. "This is most starkly evident in the DRC," OCHA reported. A high percentage of the population of the Great Lakes faced extreme poverty, the lack of subsistence activity, the presence of armed groups, sexual violence, the rise in sexually transmitted diseases "and flagrant violations of human rights", OCHA reported. Disease and conflict have resulted in "a general increase" in the number of orphaned children whose parents died of HIV/AIDS. It reported an unidentified NGO as revealing that 13 percent of all households in Rwanda were now headed by children. Another alarming trend, it added, was the disrespect for humanitarian principles by armed groups. The outcome has been the targeting and kidnapping or "murder of humanitarian workers", it said.