Date Published: 3 November 2008
Up to 100,000 displaced in North Kivu, DRC in the last week
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Up to 100,000 people, around 60% of which are children, have fled their homes due to heavy fighting between belligerent armed groups in North Kivu last week.
Around 250,000 people are now believed to have been displaced in the last two months bringing the total number of internally displaced to around one million, 20% of the entire North Kivu population.
The condition of newly displaced children and women is desperate. Thousands
have had very little to eat since fleeing. Their access to clean water and health
care has been minimal. Hundreds of children are presumed to have been separated
from their families, forced to fend for their survival on their own. The school
year that has just started has been disrupted for tens of thousands of children,
for the second year in a row.
Risk of epidemics
The consequences could be fatal for scores of children, both those displaced and those hosting the displaced. Cholera and measles epidemics are at serious risk of breaking out. Both diseases are easily communicable and flourish when large populations are on the move. Malaria, the largest killer of children in DRC, is even more of a threat as the displaced are in the open and have little to protect themselves from disease -carrying mosquitoes.
Malnutrition is sure to increase as children are not getting the nutrients
they require for healthy development. Displaced children are highly vulnerable
to exploitation, abuse, violence, and recruitment into armed groups as they
have been forced from the protection of their parents, communities, and schools.
Clean water
UNICEF with its partners is reinforcing emergency responses to the newly displaced. Several trucks carrying clean water are arriving every day to the 40,000-50,000 displaced people in Kibati, 15 kilometres north of Goma. Clean water is critical to curb outbreaks of cholera and diarrheoa, contracted from contaminated water sources.
High energy biscuits for over 15,000 young children are being distributed to
young children in Kibati to help ward off malnutrition. Sick and injured children
and women are receiving free medicine and health care to prevent easily preventable
deaths from disease. Children separated from their families are being placed
with temporary foster families to protect them; family tracing is being carried
out to locate their families so that they can soon be reunified.
Assessment
In spite of extremely limited access, clean water has continued to be delivered to Rutshuru where tens of thousands have been in flight. UNICEF today participated in an assessment mission, with partners and United Nations agencies, to evaluate the most pressing humanitarian needs there. Additional water and sanitation, health, nutrition, protection, and education activities are being planned to immediately intervene once assessments are completed.
Water and sanitation supplies such as jerrycans, bladders, and water treatment
tablets have arrived and are being used to reinforce water and sanitation activities
throughout the province. Thousands of blankets, buckets, and plastic sheets
for emergency shelter will be airlifted in by the end of the week to provide
essential survival items to the newly displaced.
UNICEF calls on armed groups to respect children's rights
After more than a decade of insecurity and conflict, the suffering of children in eastern DRC continues at monumental levels. Only with durable peace and stability can eastern DRC’s long suffering children have the guaranteed possibility to survive and realise their potential. UNICEF calls on all armed groups and actors to give this possibility a chance, to respect all children’s rights enshrined in international law.
Source: UNICEF Main Website.
See also UNICEF
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