1,000 Congolese Civilians a Day Are Dying
By David Lewis
Reuters via Truthout
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LEW924648.htm
Thursday 09 December 2004
Kinshasa - Over 1,000 Congolese civilians a day are dying, nearly all from
disease and malnutrition, due to a festering conflict that has killed 3.8
million people, an aid agency said on Thursday.
Although the Democratic Republic of Congo's five-year war was declared
over last year, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said it was still the
"deadliest crisis" in the world, but the international community was doing too
little to stop it.
"In a matter of six years, the world lost a population equivalent to the
entire country of Ireland or the city of Los Angeles," said Dr Richard Brennan,
one of the authors of a study by the private New York-based refugee relief
agency.
"How many innocent Congolese have to perish before the world starts paying
attention?"
The mortality study updates a previous widely agreed death toll of three
million people from the war which sucked in six neighboring countries.
Based on a survey of 19,500 households, it found almost half of those who
died were children under five and 98 percent of people were killed by disease
and malnutrition resulting from a healthcare system destroyed by the years of
war.
Peace deals were signed in 2002 and a transitional government set up last
year, charged with leading the vast central African nation to elections in
2005, but huge tracts of the east remain unstable.
Last month, tiny neighbor Rwanda threatened to attack rebels in Congo,
fuelling fears of a return to full-scale war.
"If the effects of insecurity and violence in Congo's eastern provinces
were removed entirely, mortality would reduce to almost normal levels," the aid
agency said, citing the case of Kisangani, a town where fighting has ended,
basic services have been restored and mortality has dropped by four fifths.
Highlighting the discrepancy between the $3.5 billion aid budget for Iraq
in 2003 and the $188 million earmarked for Congo in 2004, the IRC labeled the
international community's response to Congo's crisis "grossly inadequate in
proportion to need".
Improving security, increasing basic medical care and providing
immunization and clean water would save thousands of lives in Congo, Brennan
said.
"There's no shortage of evidence. It's sustained compassion and political
will that's lacking," he added.
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