Rising food prices add to misery in the east

Janine Maombi came to the bustling central market in Goma, the capital of the restive North Kivu province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, to buy potatoes.

But after learning that the price had again risen, the widowed mother of six slumped on a stool next to the seller and quietly requested a discount.

“I have no idea what my children are going to eat for dinner,” Maombi said, opening her purse, which held only a few coins.

Potato seller Mukobo Ajani was sympathetic but explained that she could not afford to lower her prices.

“Laurent Nkunda’s rebels are blocking trucks in the road,” she said. “Often, I can’t get my goods to the market. I have no choice.”

Since mid-October, the price of a kilo of potatoes has risen from 120 Congolese Francs (about 25 US cents) to 150 Francs - a marked increase for tens of thousands of desperately poor women with large families to feed.

Prices of other staples, including flour, fish, bananas and avocados have also risen.

Food insecurity has added to the problems of sexual violence and mass displacement as one of the critical issues spawned by the ongoing conflict between rebels loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda and the Congolese army.

The Forces Armées de la Republic Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) and Nkunda’s National Congress for the People’s Defense (CNDP) are responsible for food shortages that could affect three million people across North Kivu province, humanitarian workers say.

“FARDC and CNDP are sort of playing a game right now in Masisi of blocking each other’s commercial traffic,” said Louis Vigneault, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Goma.

Vigneault told IRIN that both groups have blocked commercial trucks from delivering soap, oil and manufactured goods to Masisi, the agricultural capital of North Kivu, while also turning back Goma-bound trucks laden with bananas and potatoes.

The UN has condemned the stoppage of World Food Programme trucks delivering food aid to some of North Kivu’s 370,000 internally displaced people (IDPs).

But they also point to an unknown number of people in far-flung villages who are not receiving humanitarian aid and rely on commercial trucks to bring food staples.

“The militias have put the population in a totally disastrous situation,” Sylvie van den Wildenberg, spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC), told IRIN. “The more remote an area you live in, the more suffocated you are because the essential goods are not reaching you.”

Rising food prices have threatened security for even those vendors who sell non-food items. Suleiman Amani, 16, supports six younger siblings by selling plastic carrier bags at Goma’s central market.

“No one buys plastic bags because they don’t have anything to bring home any more,” Amani told IRIN. “I’ve had nothing to eat all day.”

And Margarite Gaina told IRIN her spice business had taken a severe hit. “People don’t buy spices anymore because there is no food for them to flavour,” she said wrily.
 

People don't buy spices anymore because there is no food to for them to flavour

Humanitarian workers have also highlighted growing resentment between the estimated 40,000 IDPs who have fled their villages for camps on the outskirts of Goma, and are receiving food aid, and those living inside Goma who have been affected by rising food prices but are receiving no aid.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has tightened registration procedures for those who want to receive aid.

“Because [the camps] are so close to Goma, the risk of having all the population of Goma go to the camp to get a bag of flour and come back to Goma is a serious concern,” says Vigneault.

But women at Goma’s central market say they harbour no ill-will towards those who have been displaced by the war.

“It is a terrible thing to live as a refugee in your own country,” rice-seller Josette Maoura told IRIN. “We all just want this war to stop.”

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