"We remain marginalised", indigenous people say

Despite government efforts to provide public services to all citizens of the Republic of Congo, indigenous communities (also known as Pygmies) continue to be discriminated against, the community's representatives have said.

"It is difficult; we don't have a health centre, no school, even though we are near the capital," said Jean Dominique Dambo, the leader of the indigenous people in Dzaka, a village near Ouesso, the main town in the Sangha region in northern Congo.

Nationwide, indigenous people are estimated to number 300,000, or 10 percent of the country's population.

Dambo said: "Over there, not far from our village, the people are getting free treated mosquito nets and other goods while we are not informed about it; I am sure they forgot about us."

He said recent health campaigns by the government targeting mothers and children in Ouesso excluded the indigenous people in the area.

"When we are sick, we use herbs; in complicated cases, we go to the town, sometimes it's too late and some die," Dambo said.

Exclusion from health services has made the community susceptible to various ailments.

"Many diseases, especially HIV cases, are common among these people as they have little access to medical care because of extreme poverty," he said.

Other communities in the Congo, like the dominant Bantus, disparage Pygmies because of their way of life.

"We cannot live with people who do not like us and who make fun of us," Louis Yambi, 27, an indigenous man in Ouesso, said.

Many diseases, especially HIV cases, are common among these people as they have little access to medical care because of extreme poverty

In schools, indigenous children are often ridiculed by their peers as being filthy and smelly, Yambi said.

"In my class no one wanted to sit with me," Jean Mobio, 20, said, adding that he had to leave school and move to the forest. "To them, I didn't have the right, I wasn't like them."

Florent Niama, the government's director-general in charge of social affairs, said the protection of these people's rights was a concern to the authorities.

He said the government's recent health campaigns, supported by several UN agencies, were not discriminatory, as all ethnic communities had been targeted.

ai/bn/sr