50 000 need urgent aid
2005-02-08 14:03
Geneva - Unicef said on Tuesday it was providing urgently needed aid for 50 000 people caught up in conflict in Congo.
The United Nations children's agency said it had rushed food and clean drinking water to camps housing thousands of families have sought refuge from an upsurge in fighting in the African nation. It was working to improve sanitation and would start vaccinations to halt outbreaks of disease.
Unicef also said it was planning to launch education programmes for youngsters in the camps.
Tens of thousands of people have sought refuge near UN peacekeepers in northeastern Congo's Ituri province following rising attacks in recent weeks.
Scant world attention
Raids by ethnic tribal fighters have grown routine in the region, as fighters loot and burn homes and kill civilians. Hundreds of women and girls have been abducted, said Unicef.
"The fighting in (Congo) has received scant world attention, yet it is one of the bloodiest conflicts the world has known since the Second World War," said Unicef spokesperson Damien Personnaz.
Since 1999, fighting in Ituri has killed more than 50 000 and forced 500 000 to flee their homes, UN officials and human rights groups say.
The Ituri conflict came amid a larger, six-nation war in Congo that killed nearly four million people, mostly through starvation and disease.
"Children are by far the most vulnerable," said Personnaz. "Hundreds of thousands of them have died due to malnutrition and other preventable diseases."
About 1.9 million youngsters across the country currently suffer from acute malnutrition, he noted.
Congo's 1998-2002 war ended formally with the creation of a transitional government in 2003 that has struggled to extend its authority to the vast country's often lawless east.
During the war, both neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda armed the ethnic Hema and Lendu militias, mainly to wrest control of the mineral-rich territory. The two sides eventually turned on one another.
- AP