Tag Archives: Congo

WHO says 19 dead, 39 infected so far in Congo Ebola outbreak

A health worker is sprayed with chlorine after visiting the isolation ward at Bikoro hospital, which received a new suspected Ebola case, in Bikoro, Democratic Republic of Congo May 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jean Robert N'Kengo

GENEVA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo reported 39 suspected, probable or confirmed cases of Ebola between April 4 and May 13, including 19 deaths, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

It said 393 people who identified as contacts of Ebola patients were being followed up. Information about the outbreak in Bikoro, Iboko and Wangata health zones in Equateur province was still limited, the WHO said in a statement.

At present the outbreak did not meet the criteria for declaring a “public health event of international concern”, which would trigger the formation of an emergency WHO committee.

(Reporting by Tom Miles, Editing by William Maclean)

Seventeen deaths reported in Congo as Ebola outbreak confirmed

FILE PHOTO: A health worker sprays a colleague with disinfectant during a training session for Congolese health workers to deal with Ebola virus in Kinshasa October 21, 2014. REUTERS/Media Coulibaly

By Benoit Nyemba and Fiston Mahamba

KINSHASA (Reuters) – At least 17 people have died in an area of northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo where health officials have now confirmed an outbreak of Ebola, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

It is the ninth time Ebola has been recorded in the central African nation, whose eastern Ebola river gave the deadly virus its name when it was discovered there in the 1970s, and comes less than a year after its last outbreak during which eight people were infected, four of whom died.

“Our country is facing another epidemic of the Ebola virus, which constitutes an international public health emergency,” the ministry said in a statement.

“We still dispose of the well trained human resources that were able to rapidly control previous epidemics,” it said.

Ebola is believed to be spread over long distances by bats, which can host the virus without dying, as it infects other animals it shares trees with such as monkeys. It often spreads to humans via infected bushmeat.

Before the outbreak was confirmed, local health officials reported 21 patients showing signs of hemorrhagic fever around the village of Ikoko Impenge, near the town of Bikoro. Seventeen of those later died.

Medical teams supported by the World Health Organization and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres were dispatched to the zone on Saturday and took five samples from suspected active cases.

Two of those samples tested positive for the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus, the ministry said.

“Since notification of the cases on May 3, no deaths have been reported either among the hospitalized cases or the healthcare personnel,” the statement said.

After Congo’s last Ebola flare-up, authorities there approved the use of a new experimental vaccine but in the end did not deploy it owing to logistical challenges and the relatively minor nature of the outbreak.

The worst Ebola epidemic in history ended in West Africa just two years ago after killing more than 11,300 people and infected some 28,600 as it rolled through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Despite regular outbreaks every few years, death tolls in Congo have been significantly lower.

“Our top priority is to get to Bikoro to work alongside the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and partners to reduce the loss of life and suffering related to this new Ebola virus disease outbreak,” said Dr Peter Salama, WHO Deputy Director-General, Emergency Preparedness and Response.

“Working with partners and responding early and in a coordinated way will be vital to containing this deadly disease.”

Health experts credit an awareness of the disease among the population and local medical staff’s experience treating for past successes containing its spread.

Congo’s vast, remote geography also gives it an advantage, as outbreaks are often localized and relatively easy to isolate.

Ikoko Impenge and Bikoro, however, lie not far from the banks of the Congo River, an essential waterway for transport and commerce.

Further downstream the river flows past Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa and Brazzaville, capital of neighboring Congo Republic – two cities with a combined population of over 12 million people.

(Writing by Tim Cocks and Joe Bavier; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Two million children in Congo at risk of starvation, U.N. warns

GENEVA (Reuters) – More than 2 million children in the Democratic Republic of Congo are estimated to be at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition if they do not get the aid they need, the United Nations warned on Friday.

U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock will meet donors next week in the country where conditions in many areas are worsening, U.N. spokesman Jens Laerke told a Geneva briefing.

“We have a great responsibility in the DRC…now is the time to stay the course,” Laerke said.

The 2 million children at risk of starvation include some 300,000 children in the Kasai region, Bettina Luescher of the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Tom Miles)

WHO confirms second Ebola case in Congo outbreak

FILE PHOTO: A health worker sprays a colleague with disinfectant during a training session for Congolese health workers to deal with Ebola virus in Kinshasa October 21, 2014. REUTERS/Media Coulibaly

By Aaron Ross

KINSHASA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Sunday a second case of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo after an outbreak this week of 17 other suspected cases.

Health officials are trying to trace 125 people thought to be linked to the cases identified in the remote northeastern province of Bas-Uele province in northeastern Congo near the border with Central African Republic, WHO’s Congo spokesman Eugene Kabambi said.

Three people have so far died among the 19 suspected and confirmed cases, he added.

It was not immediately clear how the first victim, a deceased male, caught the virus, although past outbreaks have been linked to contact with infected bush meat such as apes.

The outbreak comes just a year after the end of an epidemic in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

However, Congo, whose dense forests contain the River Ebola near where the disease was first detected in 1976, has experienced many outbreaks and has mostly succeeded in containing them without large-scale loss of life.

The GAVI global vaccine alliance said on Friday some 300,000 emergency doses of an Ebola vaccine developed by Merck <MRK.N> could be available in case of a large-scale outbreak and that it stood ready to support the Congo government on the matter.

(Reporting by Aaron Ross; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Louise Ireland and Gareth Jones)

Mass graves in central Congo bear witness to growing violence

A red headband, worn by Kamuina Nsapu militia fighters, is seen at a mass grave discovered by villagers in Tshimbulu near Kananga, the capital of Kasai-central province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, March 11, 2017.

TSHIMBULU, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – The increasingly brutal nature of fighting in central Congo between the army and local militia is on vivid display in the village of Tshienke, where the bodies of rebel fighters were dumped into a mass grave last month following intense clashes.

A visit to this site this month was the first time that journalists including Reuters have been able to see the toll that the Congolese military has exacted on fighters of the Kamuina Nsapu militia, whose insurgency poses the most serious threat to the rule of President Joseph Kabila.

Reuters was unable to determine the exact number of bodies in eight mass graves dug in January and February in Congo’s Kasai-Central province. The graves were also confirmed by nine local witnesses.

The United Nations said it suspects that Congolese forces killed 84 militia members close to the town of Tshimbulu between Feb. 9-13.

The government denies its soldiers used disproportionate force and says they have recovered automatic weapons from militia fighters after clashes.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters that the bodies in the mass graves were those of Kamuina Nsapu fighters and it was the group who had buried them, not the army.

“I don’t see why the soldiers would hide the fact, that after clashing with the terrorists, the terrorists died,” he said, confirming that the army killed militia fighters in the clashes.

Leaders of Kamuina Nsapu could not be reached for comment.

BONE SHARDS

At one grave site at Tshimbulu, a human femur poked out of the dirt and shards of bone dotted the perimeter.

“We saw arms and legs. There were … people who were entirely exposed because they hadn’t been buried well,” said one man who found the mass grave last month with fellow farmers.

He, like about a dozen witnesses Reuters interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the army.

Two km (1 mile) away in Tshienke, another farmer pointed out two more mass graves she said contained bodies dumped by an army truck between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on the night of Feb. 12, following intense clashes on Feb. 9 and 10.

A red headband of the kind worn by members of the Kamuina Nsapu militia was wedged in the grass near the graves.

In a statement to Reuters, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo said it informed the government earlier this month of three alleged mass grave sites in Tshimbulu and, in December, of seven more in the village of Nkoto, about 150 km (90 miles) northwest. The government says the graves were dug by the militia.

Kabila’s decision not to step down when his presidential mandate expired in December was followed by a wave of killings and lawlessness across the vast central African nation.

Kabila has said he is committed to respecting the constitution but an election to choose his successor cannot take place until a lengthy voter registration process is completed.

However, the rebellion that began in Kasai-Central has spread to five of Congo’s 26 provinces and resulted in hundreds of deaths.

VIOLENCE

Kabila’s opponents have used violence to exploit the uncertainty caused by his decision to stay on. Last August, a local chief known as Kamuina Nsapu after his native village, was killed in a clash with soldiers.

He had rejected the authority of the central government in Kasai-Central and demanded that government forces leave. Since then, Kamuina Nsapu militants do not appear to have a leader and some of the latest violence appears to be ethnic score-settling.

But they have also demanded that the government move to implement a deal signed on Dec. 31 requiring Kabila to step down after an election this year.

“It has taken on a political dimension because the aim is now to see Kabila no longer at the head of the country,” said Alphonse Mukendi, a human rights activist in the provincial capital Kananga.

More than 60 local leaders connected to the militia, including Kamuina Nsapu’s brother, began arriving in Kananga on Sunday for negotiations with the government, provincial vice governor Justin Milonga told Reuters.

The government hopes that conciliatory gestures, including suggestions it is prepared to return Kamuina Nsapu’s body to his family, can ease tensions, though Milonga cautioned that many in the decentralized rebellion hope to see it continue.

Kamuina Nsapu’s tactics have alienated many, according to local residents, who say it uses child soldiers, some as young as 10.

It has attacked schools and churches, institutions it sees as oppressive, and executed police officers, soldiers and rival chiefs.

Mende, the government spokesman, said Congolese forces also suffered casualties at the hands of the group, including about 30 police officers killed last August.

But in battles with the military, the militia has faced machine gun fire while its fighters are armed with machetes, batons and home-made rifles.

After a video appearing to show soldiers massacring militia members was posted on social media, the United Nations called on Congo’s government to end “human rights violations, including apparent summary executions, by the … armed forces”.

The military’s top prosecutor, Major General Joseph Ponde, announced on Saturday that seven soldiers had been charged in connection with the video, including for the war crimes of murder and mutilation.

Ponde also said investigators plan to exhume two graves discovered near where the video was shot in neighboring Kasai-Oriental province.

(Editing by Tim Cocks and Giles Elgood)

Congo police kill at least four in dawn raid on separatist cult

FILE PHOTO: A resident holds up a Bundu dia Kongo manifesto left behind after a police crackdown on the religious and political movement in Matadi, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile Bas Congo province, March 18, 2008.REUTERS/Joe Bavier/File Photo

By Aaron Ross and Benoit Nyemba

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Congo police made a pre-dawn raid on a separatist group in Kinshasa on Tuesday, killing four people but failing to arrest their leader, a self-styled religious prophet, witnesses and group members said.

Dozens of armed police stormed the home of Ne Muanda Nsemi, leader of Bundu dia Kongo (BDK), a religious cult that seeks to revive the pre-colonial Kongo kingdom that flourished for centuries around the mouth of the Congo river.

Police have clashed with BDK members several times in the past few weeks in their western heartland of Kongo Central province, but the spread of violence to the capital, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away, is a serious escalation.

It also adds to wider tensions across Congo since President Joseph Kabila refused to step down after his mandate expired in December, raising fears of a slide back into civil war.

“We are looking for (Muanda Nsemi). We are going to find him,” said Communications Minister Lambert Mende, without saying what he was accused of. He denied police had fired live ammunition.

Spokesman Pierre Mwanamputu said Muanda Nsemi’s supporters had participated in an “armed insurrectional movement” in Kinshasa on Monday.

Members of the BDK said the four fatalities were due to police preventing the wounded getting swift medical attention.

“There are four dead because they were not taken care of,” said Basangana Ndunga, president of BDK’s political wing. He said two other members had been killed in separate clashes in Kinshasa.

Residents think the raid may have been provoked by a video circulating on social media in which Muanda Nsemi appears to threaten Kabila.

However, it was unclear whether the BDK supporters in Kinshasa, who could be seen on the roofs of several buildings in their distinctive white robes and red head-dress, were armed.

Security forces killed more than 300 BDK members and bystanders in crackdowns on sometimes violent protests in 2007 and 2008, dumping their bodies in the Congo river or mass graves, rights groups say.

Separately, the United Nations said on Tuesday that soldiers targeting the Kamwina Nsapu militia group had killed at least 101 people between Feb. 9 and Feb. 13 in central Congo.

(Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

U.N. raps Congo after at least 50 killed in protests

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein attends the 33rd session of the Human Rights Council at the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland,

GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. human rights chief accused Congolese authorities on Thursday of taking an “extremely confrontational position” towards anti-government protesters and urged them to seek dialogue with the opposition.

Democratic Republic of Congo has for months suffered simmering anger over what opponents of President Joseph Kabila believe are his efforts to hold on to power beyond his constitutional term limit, either by delaying elections or revising the constitution, as other African leaders have done.

U.N. rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said the death toll from clashes between protesters and security forces on Monday in the Congolese capital Kinshasa had risen to at least 50. The government has put the death toll at 32.

A woman cries for her husband in front of a UDPS office in Kinshasa

A Congolese woman cries for her husband, who according to witnesses was killed when security forces burned down the headquarters of the main opposition party Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), in front of a UDPS office in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

 

“The writing is on the wall and the authorities need to pull back from their extremely confrontational position and build bridges with the opposition,” Zeid said in a statement.

“Some civilians were killed by gunshots to the head or chest and I strongly condemn the clearly excessive use of force by defense and security forces against demonstrators in the capital,” he said.

Congo’s attorney general vowed on Wednesday to hunt down and punish those responsible for Monday’s riots.

The electoral commission has said that polls that were supposed to happen in November will now not go ahead until at least next year, increasing concerns that Kabila plans to hold on to power beyond his constitutional mandate.

Kabila’s office, in a statement on Wednesday, called for calm and invited “the entire population to go about their daily activities now that security is again fully ensured”.

World powers, especially the United States, have heaped pressure on Kabila to respect the constitution and hold elections on time. They are also growing increasingly concerned over what they say are efforts to stifle peaceful protest.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Two women lynched, set on fire in Congo as ethnic tensions flare

Congolese soldiers stand guard as civilians chant slogans during a protest against the government's failure to stop the killings and inter-ethnic tensions in the town of Butembo

By Kenny Katombe

BUTEMBO, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – Two Hutu women were dragged out of a minibus, lynched and their bodies set on fire by a crowd in eastern Congo, the local mayor said on Wednesday, as inter-ethnic tensions in the region surge in the wake of massacres that have killed hundreds of civilians.

The crowd in the town of Butembo, which is dominated by members of the Nande ethnic group, said the two ethnic Hutu women who were traveling by minibus in North Kivu province were militants, mayor Sikuli Uvasaka Makala told local radio.

Dozens have died in tit-for-tat killings by ethnic militia this year.

Ethnic rivalries, invasions by Rwanda and Uganda and competition for land and minerals among eastern Congo’s dozens of rebel groups have stoked conflict over the last two decades.

“I condemn the death of these two women,” Uvasaka said. “I insist: stop carrying out popular justice. Do you want to put the Nande community at risk?”

Migration by Hutu farmers from North Kivu through predominantly Nande areas towards Ituri province in search of more fertile land has fueled tensions, Otto Bahizi, a Hutu tribal leader from nearby Rutshuru territory, told Reuters.

The government blames the massacres over the last two years that have killed more than 700 civilians on Ugandan Islamist rebels but independent analysts say other armed groups are involved and ethnic rivalries likely play a role.

About 50 civilians were hacked to death this month outside Beni, some 50 km (30 miles) north of Butembo.

Hundreds of young demonstrators again took to the streets of Butembo on Wednesday to protest against the government’s failure to stop the killings. The army fired into the air and arrested about 15 people, a Reuters witness said.

(Additional reporting and writing by Aaron Ross in Kinshasa; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Louise Ireland)

U.N. peacekeepers preparing for possible Congo political violence

broken glass of looted store

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Political uncertainty over Democratic Republic of Congo’s next presidential election could spiral into a severe crisis and United Nations peacekeepers are developing contingency plans for widespread violence, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council released on Tuesday, Ban said that under those plans peacekeepers in Congo might need to ask for help from other U.N. missions.

“I am concerned that in the absence of a credible and meaningful political dialogue among Congolese stakeholders, tensions could degenerate into a severe crisis, with a high risk of relapse into violence and instability,” Ban said.

The Congolese government has said it is unlikely it will be able to hold elections in November for logistical reasons but opponents of President Joseph Kabila accuse him of trying to cling to power. The government has denied the claim.

Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, is barred by the constitution from standing for a third term. But a Kabila ally has raised the prospect of a referendum to allow him to run.

Dozens of Kabila’s critics have been arrested since last year as part of what the United Nations and rights groups say is an escalating crackdown on political dissent ahead of a presidential election.

“I urge the government of Democratic Republic of Congo to respect freedom of expression, assembly and information as fundamental rights that are essential to the conduct of free and fair elections,” Ban said.

Dozens died in street protests in January 2015 against a revision to the election code that could have pushed the election back by years.

“(The U.N. peacekeeping mission) MONUSCO is developing contingency plans in the event of widespread violence in the context of the electoral process,” Ban said.

The U.N. Security Council is due to be briefed on the U.N. peacekeeping mission on Thursday.

The overthrow of longtime Congolese ruler Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 fuelled years of conflict in the mineral-rich east that sucked in more than half a dozen countries and killed millions of people. U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Congo since 2000.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Human Rights Watch accuses Congo Republic peacekeepers

A Democratic Republic of Congo soldier from the African peacekeeping forces stands near closed shops in Bangui

By Joe Bavier

ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Human Rights Watch on Tuesday accused soldiers from the Republic of Congo of killing 18 people, including women and children, while serving as United Nations and African Union peacekeepers in Central African Republic.

A Congolese defense ministry official, contacted in Brazzaville, said an investigation was underway and rejected claims it had ignored the allegations.

Central African Republic descended into chaos in March 2013 when predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power, triggering reprisals by “anti-balaka” Christian militias.

The New York-based rights group said Congolese soldiers tortured two anti-balaka leaders to death in December 2013, publicly executed another two suspected anti-balaka in February 2014, and beat two civilians to death in June 2015.

HRW also said a mass grave found near a base once occupied by Congolese troops in the town of Boali was found to contain the remains of 12 people identified as having been detained by the peacekeepers on March 24, 2014.

“The discovery of 12 bodies is damning evidence of an appalling crime by Congolese peacekeepers, who had been sent to protect people, not prey on them,” said HRW Africa researcher Lewis Mudge.

The United Nations took over peacekeeping responsibilities from the A.U. in Central African Republic in September 2014 and has since come under fire for rights violations alleged to have been committed by its soldiers. The HRW said the U.N. force had insisted the Congolese troops implicated in the alleged killings in Boali be sent home and replaced by new units.

“Simply rotating troops out of the Central African Republic with no further consequences sends the message that peacekeepers can get away with murder,” Mudge said.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said U.N. human rights officials investigated the allegations and handed their findings over to local authorities.

ALLEGED ABUSES

At least 13 people, including five women, one of whom was six months pregnant, and two children, were arrested at the home of a local anti-balaka leader after a clash that resulted in the death of a Congolese soldier, HRW said.

That night witnesses interviewed by HRW heard screams and two rounds of gunfire from the Congolese base. The peacekeepers later warned local residents to avoid a nearby area, claiming it had been mined, HRW said.

A local charity excavated the site in February and the victims were identified by their clothing.

Human Rights Watch said it had over the past two years repeatedly contacted Congolese authorities, including President Denis Sassou Nguesso, calling upon them to launch credible investigations and punish those responsible for the abuse.

However, it said no action had been taken.

“Congo is cooperating with the United Nations to verify the allegations against its troops,” Congo Defence Ministry spokesman Romain Oba said, rejecting the accusation it had failed to act. “We are waiting for the results.”

Dujarric said the United Nations would “continue to follow up … with the African Union and Republic of Congo authorities, as it has been doing over the course of the last two years.”

He added that it was the duty of local authorities to secure the mass grave site. African Union and Central African officials were not immediately available for comment.

Neither the U.N. nor countries hosting U.N. missions have the authority to prosecute foreign peacekeepers. Punishment is the responsibility of troop contributing countries, but critics claim they often fail to pursue allegations.

(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations and Christian Elion in Brazzaville; Editing by Tim Cocks and Richard Balmforth)