More trouble for Congo

         Displaced people wait for aid Friday from the World Food Program in the village of Kiwanja, in eastern Congo

Hungry and homeless lined up by the thousands for food Friday in Eastern Congo. United Nation is beginning it’s first large-scale delivery in this area since fighting broke out in late October.

U.N. World Food spokesman Marcus Prior said,50,000 civilians in the area are getting more than 100 tons of food in the area north of the provincial capital of Goma over the next four days.

Many of the refugees say there is plenty of food, there is just no place to go. Government militiamen have occupied fields near Kiwanja such as Musi Batai’s. “ They told me I had to pay them to take my food,“ he said.
Meanwhile, the U.N. refugee agency plans to move tens of thousands of refugees from two camps in Kibati to a new site 9 miles west next week because the area is just miles from the tense front line.

Aid groups have expressed concern about rape and other violence in the government-controlled camps. Eastern Congo has been unstable since millions of refugees spilled across the border from Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which saw more than 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus slaughtered.

On Thursday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he will support a U.N. plan to send 3,000 more troops to Congo, but he said the force must have better leadership and equipment.

Fighting Intensifies In Congo

The road that leads into rebel-controlled Congo begins with a makeshift roadblock made from the corpses of two government soldiers strewn across the dark volcanic earth.
The scene was meant as a warning to government troops just a few hundred yards down the road whom the rebels had battled the night before.

   The bodies of two goverment soldiers killed in fighting during the night is seen in the road on the front line, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008 near Kibati, just north of Goma, in eastern Congo. Photo by Karel Prinsloo
                                                                  

Fighting and bloodshed have intensified in the Congo region sparking fears of another all out war. Worries that Angola will send troops is fueling fears that the conflict will engulf the region. Years of sporadic violence in eastern Congo intensified in August, and fighting between the army and fighters loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has displaced at least 250,000 people since then — despite the presence of the largest U.N. peacekeeping force in the world.

Displaced Congolese people who sought refuge at the Rugari MONUC base for the night are seen aboard a minibus as they attempt to cross the front line to reach Goma, in Rugari, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Goma, eastern Congo, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2008. Photo by Jerome Delay
                                                                   
The overt entry of Angolans into the conflict could draw in Rwanda, which Congo has already accused of sending troops to support Nkunda.

  A displaced woman carries her baby and a 50 kilogram bag of flour at a Red Cross food distribution point, Monday, Nov. 10, 2008 in Kibati in eastern Congo. Photo by  Karel Prinsloo
                                                          

Bloggers Unite For Refugees

Today is the day we give our voice for those who have none. Today is the day we unite for refugees. We are banding together to give the world the stories of families torn asunder by war. Men who do not know where their wives are. Mothers who do not know where their children are. Help the refugees of the world find their loved ones. Help them get the message, I am alive, I am here!



With the call of a cease fire in Goma, thousands of war weary refugees strive to reach their homes they had fled when the fighting started. American and U.N. envoys join forces to try to find a solution to the region’s long running rebellion.

Laurent Nkunda's renegade movement called a truce after an upsurge of fighting this week. He said he wanted the cease-fire to allow humanitarian help to get through and refugees to go home.

The U.N. refugee agency said it was getting reports that 50,000 people, in desperate need of help, have been forced out of refugee camps and settlements in rebel-held areas near the town of Rutshuru in recent days.

Women whose faces streamed with sweat carried bundles of belongings on their backs and toddlers on their necks.
Rhema Harerimana, who has been on the run for five days, told the AP "We've had nothing to eat for three days, There's no shelter, there's no food, My only choice is to go home." she said.
She is trying to make it back  home Friday to Kibumba, about 17 miles (28 kilometers) from Goma.
Nkunda's rebellion has threatened to reignite the back-to-back wars that afflicted Congo from 1996 to 2002, drawing in eight African nations.  Elected in 2006 in the first vote in 40 years, President Joseph Kabila has struggled ever since to contain the bloody insurgency in the east.

Jendayi Frazer, the top U.S. envoy for Africa and Alan Doss, the top U.N. envoy in Congo, flew into Goma on Friday to try to help. They met with Julien Mpaluku, Goma’s Governor, along with government ministers and local officials.

Nkunda began a low-level rebellion in 2004, claiming Congo's transition to democracy had excluded the Tutsi ethnic group. Despite agreeing in January to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, he resumed fighting in August.
Nkunda charges the Congolese government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to Congo after helping slaughter half a million Rwandan Tutsis in 1994. Congo has charges Nkunda himself with involvement in war crimes, and Human Rights Watch say it has documented summary executions, torture, and rape committed by soldiers under Nkunda’s command in 2002 and 2004.

Rights groups have also accused government forces of atrocities and widespread looting.

A team from International Medical Corps trying to reach a clinic in Kibumba, were stopped by a rebel guard, who said he needed permission from a higher up to let them pass. Two hours later they were still waiting. Close by, rebels refuse to allow a group of about twenty drivers of motorbike taxis to return home. “Those new soldiers have blocked us from returning,” said driver Ruwara Nuyubuzu, referring to the rebels manning a checkpoint. “We want to go home.”

Village chief Gatambaza Kariwabo says soldiers have looted homes and the bank in Kibumba.

The United Nations has approx. 17,000 Congo peacekeepers. They only have about 6,000 of these I the east because of unrest in other provinces.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking to reporters in New Delhi, urged all sides to respect the cease-fire. He also said he was concerned about attacks on U.N. workers by Congolese who accused them of not protecting the population.
This comes from a purely, some purely misunderstandings from them," Ban said. "United Nations is there to keep peace and stability."

 

  – People walk past a United Nations armoured vehicle, not seen, in Goma in eastern Congo, Thursday, Oct. …