Community gets canoes to help ease transport woes

Residents of a suburb of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, have received three canoes to ease movement to and from their locale, cut off by a river. The minister for social affairs, solidarity and humanitarian action, Emilienne Raoul, officially handed over the canoes on Wednesday to the residents of Kiélé Ténard in the southwestern part of Brazzaville. The suburb is in Mfilou, the 7th District of the city. River Djoué, on which a dam has been built to provide electricity for most of the city, separates Kiélé Ténard from the other districts. Some 250 people live in Kiélé Ténard, which is on the right bank of the river. They have to cross the river daily to go to work, sell agricultural produce and to get medical care. At least 80 children pay between 50 and 100 francs CFA (less than US $0.18) every time they cross the river on their way to school. Kiélé Ténard residents had been in need of the community canoes, each of which can carry 15 to 20 passengers. The residents were adversely affected by civil war, which broke out in 1998. The donation was part of the ministry's support programme to the population, whose living conditions were affected by the war. Raoul set up the support programme after the war to enable people to return to their homes. The ministry had already provided tents and building materials to Kiélé Ténard residents to help them to resettle in their villages. "We were 3,000 displaced people," Marcel Moundouono, the chief of Kiélé Ténard District. "At the end of the war, we came back to our district, which was ruined by the war. We have lost our homes, our school and our health centre."