UNHCR “concerned” about Congo refugees

The UNHCR is growing increasingly concerned for the safety of tens of thousands of people crammed into a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The president of the country has now said he believes up to two million people have been displaced. In the Kibati camp near Goma a young woman has been shot dead and armed men have looted the makeshift huts.

Aid workers want to send the sick and hungry to a new camp but it is not yet ready.

“Every evening we have to move the sick patients into the Provincial hospital because of the fighting,” said Medecins sans Frontieres doctors.

North Kivu, of which Goma is the provincial capital, has seen terrible violence in the past two years. It intensified a couple of months ago.

Regular aid supplies are now getting through under the watchful eye of United Nations soldiers. The UN has voted to send in 3000 more peacekeepers.

A ceasefire is in place in the region, but UN workers complain their warehouses are being pillaged and the refugees live in fear of being kidnapped or killed by armed gangs.

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