Zaire: ICRC demands access to conflict victims

2 April 1997
Press Release 97/08

Geneva (ICRC) - In spite of the aid which has been trickling in over the past few days to help feed refugees gathered along a few kilometres of railway line between the towns of Kisangani and Ubundu, the plight of Rwandan refugees in Zaire remains disastrous. Although the fighting is no longer driving the refugees - most of them women and children - further into the interior, countless people have already died or are on the point of dying of exhaustion, hunger and disease, despite the efforts deployed in particular by the volunteers of the Zairian Red Cross.

In view of the magnitude and urgency of the needs, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) requests the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL) to grant its delegates unrestricted access to the victims. In limiting the distribution of humanitarian aid to the refugee assembly points along the railway line, and especially in forcing those having succeeded in reaching the outskirts of Kisangani - which is the logistics centre for the entire humanitarian operation - to move away from the town, the ICRC is concerned that any new forced population movement will lead to the death of thousands of people.

With the arrival of heavy rains in areas with dense vegetation, the scale of needs has become truly alarming. It is no longer merely a matter of feeding the hungry but of coping with serious medical emergencies (dysentery and malaria are already taking their toll, and there are fears of a cholera epidemic and outbreaks of other fatal diseases). The ICRC hereby appeals to all concerned to respect the victims’ right to assistance and protection and demands immediate access to these people in desperate need of help.

The plight of the refugees gathered along the Kisangani-Ubundu railway line must not overshadow that of the tens of thousands of other conflict victims from Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi scattered all over southern Zaire, where every day ICRC delegates report having found people in a state of extreme exhaustion.