Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
11 March 2008
The humanitarian crisis caused by a devastating earthquake in eastern Congo early last month continues to worsen, according to Archbishop François-Xavier Maroy Rusengo of Bukavu.
In a moving appeal, sent to the headquarters of the international Catholic pastoral charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Germany, Archbishop Maroy called upon all people of goodwill to come to the aid of the affected people.
He described the situation in the region, following the earthquakes there between February 3 and 5 as "still critical". Many people are still sleeping out in the open because of the continuing aftershocks, he told ACN, adding that the people are "paralysed" by "psychosis" and a "climate of permanent insecurity".
Many houses collapsed, the bishop explained, and the damage done by the earthquake to Church properties and buildings alone now runs to over seven million Euros. Schools, churches, hospitals, health centres, religious houses and other educational establishments were severely damaged.
ACN has also received other eyewitness reports of the situation in the region. Father Bunyakiri Mukengere Crispin, the rector of the seminary in Murhesa, said his seminary was damaged and the seminarians traumatized. Despite this, however, they decided of their own accord to continue their exams.
Father Félicien Nsabimana, the parish priest of Nkanga, said the parish church was split in half by the earthquake and that one half then collapsed. He now celebrates Holy Mass out in the open. Almost all the dwellings in the rural region likewise collapsed, he told ACN, adding that the people were still in a state of panic.
A series of earthquakes of between 5 and 6 on the Richter scale shook the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the west of Rwanda. Dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured. The aftershocks, some of them quite severe, are still continuing.
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