Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire)
December 4,
2008: Goma, the capital of North Kivu
province, has about 70,000 refugees in its immediate vicinity. Feeding and
providing medical services for these refugees is a tremendous burden. Numerous
cases of cholera and measles are appearing among refugees fleeing the fighting
in eastern Congo. During the Great Congo War exposure, starvation, and disease
caused most of the deaths, not gunfire and high explosives.
December 2,
2008: General Laurent Nkunda (and his National Congress for the Defense of the
People, or CNDP), believes that eastern
Congo continues to provide sanctuary for FDLR (Democratic Forces for the
Liberation of Rwanda) Hutu militiamen who were responsible for the Tutsi
genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
December 1,
2008: Laurent Nkunda's forces have withdrawn from the town of Ishasha. On
November 29, while meeting with UN officials, Nkunda agreed to withdraw from the town. Ishasha is on the Congo-Uganda border,
approximately 35 kilometers northeast of Nkunda's headquarters in Rutshuru. The
UN agreed to arrange talks between Congo president Joseph Kabila and Nkunda
(who has demanded negotiations with the government). Direct talks with Kabila
would be a diplomatic victory of Nkunda, since he has been portraying his
movement as a nation-wide rebellion against the Kabila government.
November 28,
2008: Uganda reported that forces loyal to Laurent Nkunda took the town of
Ishasha on the Uganda-Congo border. Nkunda's fighters also took control of a
boat landing site on Lake Edward.
The government
told the UN that it does not want the UN to send more Indian peacekeepers to
the eastern Congo. The government did not expand on the request, but Indian
troops have confronted charges of dealing in precious minerals, trading with
rebel militias, and of sexually abusing Congolese women.
November 27,
2008: The UN reported that Congolese civilians "surrounded" a UN convoy in the
town of Kibati and arrested 20 men the civilians claimed were rebels loyal to
Laurent Nkunda. The UN forces said the men the crowd pulled from the convoy
were in fact pro-government militiamen who were being taken to a UN-run
demobilization camp.
France has
asked the UN Security Council to allow UN peacekeeping troops to "more easily
use force" in order to protect Congolese civilians in eastern Congo.
MONUC
reported that up to 10,000 Congolese civilians fled to Uganda to escape
fighting along the Congo-Uganda border between forces loyal to Laurent Nkunda
and Congolese government forces.
November 25,
2008: Pro-government fighters reportedly looted a refugee camp near the town of
Kibati (about ten kilometers from Goma).
