United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa)
Joseph Tchimanga
28 November 2008
Thousands of Congolese civilians continue to flee the violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo towards Uganda, where the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) must deal with 27,000 people, displaced since the beginning of the war in North Kivu at the end of August 2008.
In a Radio Okapi report, ten thousand new Congolese refugees arrived Thursday last in the district of Kamungu, along with 3,000 others who entered the district on Wednesday last, according to UNHCR staff based at the frontier city of Ishasha in southwestern Uganda.
They are fleeing new clashes around the town of Rutshuru, 70km to the north of North Kivu capital Goma.
Clashes involving the Patriotes Résistants Congolais (PARECO) and the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP) continued this Friday 28 November 2008 in the village of Lukofu, in the southern sector of Masisi territory, which created a panic movement within the civilians, the vast majority fleeing to Uganda and accusing the CNDP of making them targets of war.
Under the cover of "pacification and police operations," the CNDP launched new military operations last week on the Kiwanja-Ishasha axis, thereby worsening the humanitarian and security situation in North Kivu.
On 25 November 2008, MONUC condemned without reserve the actions initiated by the CNDP and urges to them to conform without condition to the ceasefire, and not to worsen the suffering of the local population.
"The priority is to put an end to the clashes in progress, started by the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP) of Laurent Nkunda," declared United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday last, in a special report on the situation in eastern DRC.
He launched a call to all neighbouring countries, to use all of their moral authority to persuade Nkunda "to fully respect a complete ceasefire, to return to the application of the Goma Acts of Engagement and to cease military action."
According to the Secretary General, MONUC would have, over the next 12 months, to continue to concentrate on the priority tasks consisting in protecting the civilian population in eastern DRC.
It will have to also continue to bring a total and coherent support to the Goma and Nairobi processes, which he said "offer the essential political framework to tackle the problem presented by the CNDP and the FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda).
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See What I mean...Like jumping out of the skillet into the fire.Create a problem byelecting recycled criminals,brigands,miscreants ,dogs,snakes,crows cows,pigs,snakes as leaders and when the stuff hit the fan every one start to flee.Uganda has its own problems it cannot host the population of its next door neighbor (s).Look at Thailand , the people there had enough with corrupt and inept leaders so the masses banded together with a common cause ....make the leaders leve the country....In Africa the situation is the reverse.