UN agency leads humanitarian assessment missions to the east

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has led two joint missions to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to evaluate the humanitarian situation in areas affected by recent fighting, the agency reported on Friday.

OCHA said it had, so far, led assessment teams to Walikale and Rutshuru, both in the eastern province of North Kivu. Several NGOs had also begun their own assessments of the area, OCHA reported.

It said 90 percent of the humanitarian organisations in the towns of Bukavu, Goma, Kalemie and Kindu, as well as in the capital, Kinshasa, had been affected either by looting, suspension of activities or lack of access to vulnerable groups.

It added that an estimated US $1.5-million worth of humanitarian supplies, equipment and vehicles had been looted during military operations and civilian demonstrations.

Fighting erupted in Bukavu on 26 May when dissident Congolese army troops invaded the towns ostensibly to protect the minority Congolese Tutsi, known as the Banyamulenge, from persecution by the commander of the 10th Military Region, Gen Mbuza Mabe, who had been posted to the area by the Kinshasa transitional government. Loyalist troops re-entered Bukavu on 9 June, a day after the dissidents withdrew.

OCHA said by the weekend, fewer than 25 percent of humanitarian organisations affected by the crises had resumed their normal operations.

The sectors most affected were health, water, food security and protection, OCHA said.

In South Kivu Province, OCHA reported that some 514,000 people were no longer receiving health, water or sanitation aid from the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which had suspended operations following the increased violence.

IRC Country Director Werner Vansant told IRIN on Monday the organisation was monitoring the situation to see when it could return to the field. He added that IRC had been working with local partners to evaluate the security situation.

OCHA reported that humanitarian organisations were slowly starting to resume their activities in the most affected areas of North and South Kivu, Maniema and northern Katanga.