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Doctors fight cholera outbreak in eastern Congo Print E-mail
Sunday, 09 November 2008
By ANITA POWELL
The Associated Press
Sunday, November 9, 2008; 2:38 PM

KIBATI, Congo -- Doctors struggled Sunday to contain an outbreak of
cholera in a sprawling refugee camp near Congo's eastern provincial
capital of Goma, as renewed fighting ignited fears that patients could
scatter and launch an epidemic. Congolese soldiers and rebels were seen less than 800 meters (yards)
apart near Goma, where rebel leader Laurent Nkunda declared a cease-fire
on Oct. 29 as his forces reached the edge of the city.

Rebels and soldiers clashed Thursday just north of the Kibati refugee
camp, seven miles (12 kilometers) from Goma, and soldiers who retreated
last week were digging in Sunday at a new front line.

Some 50,000 refugees have crowded around Kibati, some taken into log
cabins by villagers, others living in tents or hastily built
beehive-shaped huts. Thousands who sleep out in the open huddled under
plastic sheeting Sunday as curtains of rain pounded down.

Doctors Without Borders said it treated 13 new cases of cholera in
Kibati on Sunday and has seen 45 cases since Friday. The agency's Dr.
Rafaela Gentilini said shortages of water and latrines were making the
outbreak "really dangerous."

Dozens of people have died of cholera in recent weeks elsewhere in
eastern Congo. Doctors also fear an epidemic north of Goma behind rebel
lines, where access has been limited by fighting and rebels have driven
tens of thousands of people from camps where outbreaks had been contained.

At the front line near Kibati, soldiers milled around Sunday, collecting
pay, smoking marijuana and looking unconcerned about the rebels, who
were gathering less than a kilometer (half a mile) away. Intermittent
gunshots crackled from the direction of government positions.

"I'm ready, ready to kill Nkunda!" said 1st Sgt. Claude Kazunga, 33,
raising his AK-47. "If they provoke us, we will push them back."

Other soldiers hoped for a more peaceful solution.

"The (heavy) weapons that are being fired around here, we are killing
our own parents," said Lt. Jean-Paul Briki. "There must be negotiations."

The fighting in eastern Congo is fueled by ethnic hatred left over from
the 1994 slaughter of at least 500,000 Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda.

Nkunda, whose rebels launched an offensive Aug. 28, first said he was
fighting to protect minority Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu militants who
participated in the genocide before fleeing to Congo.

Now he says he wants to "liberate" all Congo from an allegedly corrupt
government. He is seeking direct talks with his former comrade-in-arms,
President Joseph Kabila, whose government says it will not negotiate
with a war criminal.

In Kibati on Sunday, rain soaked two young brothers wearing rags and
plastic sandals who said they had walked from Rugari, 17 miles (28
kilometers) away.

Kasigue, who said he was 12 but appeared far younger, shivered as he
clutched a clump of green onions and some electrical wire. His brother
Gasaza huddled under a dirty plastic sheet. The boys were separated from
their parents when fighting erupted and hoped to find them at Kibati.

"We've been walking since morning," said Gasaza.

The U.N. Children's Fund says hundreds of children have lost their
parents as more than 250,000 refugees have been forced from their homes
in the last 10 weeks.

In Kibati, the International Red Cross distributed enough flour, oil and
beans to feed 35,000 people for 10 days, and spokesman Luc Haas said
more food will be distributed Monday.

Earlier Sunday, thousands of people packed churches in Kibati and Goma
to pray for a halt to the fighting that saw rebels and pro-government
militiamen executing civilians last week in what the top U.N. envoy to
Congo has called war crimes.

But prayers went unheeded, as new fighting erupted 35 miles (60
kilometers) northwest of Goma, with rebels and Congolese soldiers firing
mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in the village of Ngungu, U.N.
military spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said. The rebels also were
fighting pro-government Mai Mai militia around Ngungu, he said.

U.N. peacekeepers met with commanders of the three forces and persuaded
them to stop after about six hours, Dietrich said.

Rebels and soldiers also clashed briefly at two villages north of Goma,
one near Kiwanja, where the alleged war crimes were committed.

U.N. officials are investigating killings in the last few days at
Kiwanja, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Goma. They say residents
first were terrorized by Mai Mai militia who killed people they accused
of supporting the rebels _ then the rebels won control and killed those
they claimed had supported the militia.

Many victims were shot execution-style in the head, residents told The
Associated Press.

U.N. investigators said at least 26 people were killed, but the New
York-based Human Rights Watch group says it believes as many as 50
people died.

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