Focus on peace train arriving in Maniema

After six years of hardship and lack of access to manufactured goods, the residents of Maniema Province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), breathed a collective sigh of relief last week when the first train linking Lubumbashi, the capital of the southern province of Katanga, arrived in Kindu, the capital of Maniema Province. The Lubumbashi-Kindu train, carrying food and non-food relief aid, arrived on 28 June after a four-day journey along about 1,500 km of newly rehabilitated railway line. It had passed through the towns of Kibombo, Malela, Samba, Kibamba, Lubunda, Kongolo and Kabalo. Rail services between the two provinces had been disrupted for years by civil war in the vast central African country, but the nation is currently making strides towards peace and democracy. A transitional government of national unity was installed in the capital, Kinshasa, in June 2003, and elections are due in 2005. Nicholas Jenks, the project manager for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the principal investor in the Lubumbashi-Kindu project, said the agency had contributed US $1.3 million towards rehabilitating the railway. The funds were made available to a number of NGOs, including Food for the Hungry, Caritas-Congo, Catholic Relief Services, Concern and Care International, which distributed the rehabilitation work under the direction of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affaires (OCHA). "The arrival of this train cements the internal reunification of the country and has opened up our province," Kolosso Sumahili, the Maniema governor, said. Suspension caused social disruption The six-year suspension of rail traffic had led to the separation of families and interrupted the flow of essential commerce to both Katanga and Maniema. "I hope that my sister and my brother, whom I haven't seen in six years, will be able to take the next train to rejoin the family," Mayola Bernard, a former employee of the National Freight and Passenger Service (SNCC), said. The humanitarian situation in the region had deteriorated ever since the suspension of rail services. "Because of the war, the situation was very sombre. Vulnerable populations were lacking food, clothing, medicine, salt, soap, and seeds for planting," Sumahili said. The OCHA liaison officer in Lubumbashi, Balthazar Ainda, said the resumption of rail traffic would enable the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and other humanitarian agencies to resume their programmes in the region. He said by the end of this week, UNICEF would have sent more then 2,000 packages of non-food items for distribution to internally displaced people in Maniema. "The country's vulnerable population - some 15,000 families totalling 90,000 people - will receive this emergency assistance that will be distributed under the guidance of Catholic Relief Services," he said. In addition, Care International will use the railway to deliver a 19-mt consignment of construction materials to rehabilitate eight medical centres in Kindu. The reopening would also stimulate the transportation and commercialisation of agricultural products in the region. "The consequence [of interrupted traffic] was that the price of manufactured products went up [by] five or six times," Sumahili said. "A beer that sold for 250 Congolese francs [about US $1] would cost 1,600 francs in Kindu," he added. The Lubumbashi axis Indeed, Kindu is the principal transport line for several other provinces in eastern DRC. Before the war, it served to deliver agricultural produce to Maniema and grain to Katanga, Father Theophile Kaboy, the Bishop of Kindu, said. Before the war, the train would bring several hundred tonnes of rice, palm oil, fruits, vegetables and wood from Maniema to Lubumbashi and Kalemie, every week. In the other direction, manufactured goods and salt, rare in Kindu, would come from Lubumbashi. Security along the newly rehabilitated railway will be provided by DRC military police. The disruption of the railway has caused the DRC government substantial losses. "The train will bring us $11 million per year," Emmanuel Nkulu Kilumba, the SNCC general administrative representative, said. Before the war, the SNCC had 16,000 employees countrywide, most of whom, including the 4,000 employees in Kindu, lost their jobs as a result of the fighting.