World Tour: Challenges in the Congo

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: A World Tour special report.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is in crisis. Rebels on the move, Christians under attack, and a health mystery unfolding.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Here’s WORLD’s Africa reporter Onize Oduah.

ONIZE ODUAH: At the beginning of this year, the eastern city of Goma already hosted some 600,000 displaced people in camps. But then a surge in fighting began in late January.

Since the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels began their takeover, many of the existing refugee camps have been destroyed.

RUMBI: They ordered everybody to go, but they were given only 24 hours to go back to their villages because they said there is now security there.

Rumbi Pairamanzi is the Congo country director for World Relief. She says many of those who remained in Goma are now scattered across schools, churches, and with host families.

M23 rebels seized control of Goma in January … then marched on to eastern Congo’s second-largest city of Bukavu last month.

These rebels are the most active of more than 100 armed groups in Congo’s eastern region, holding trillions of dollars worth of mineral wealth.

Judith Suminwa Tuluka is the prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

SOT: [FRENCH] The conflict has caused, among other things, the death of more than 7,000 compatriots, including more than 2,500 bodies buried without being identified and more than 1,500 bodies still lying around in morgues.

She says the fighting since January has killed more than 7,000 people. More than half of the dead have been buried without identification or remain in morgues.

American missionary Ron Kronz was planning a mission to both Goma and Bukavu when fighting broke out.

KRONZ: If my life depended on it, I could not get to Goma. So we had to change our plan.

Those changes meant staying in Congo’s capital of Kinshasa, and sending support to those stranded in Goma.

KRONZ: Fortunately, we were able to at least get basic provisions in their food. Uh, predominantly food, is a big deal. Water, food, that kind of thing. And we were also able to get messages in via WhatsApp and actually do audio messages, Christian preaching messages, and, and, and that's what we could do.

The fighting has sent some of the displaced fleeing across the border to Burundi.

Katharina von Schroeder is the advocacy and media director for the aid group Save the Children. She says the group’s emergency response is focusing on reuniting separated families and child protection.

VON SCHROEDER: What often happens is that families are separated while they're fleeing. So we see a lot of children that are unaccompanied, and of course those children are even more at risk of being exploited, of being abused.

Leaders have so far refused calls for direct talks with the M23 rebels.

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan acknowledged that decades of violence has gone unchecked in the region. He added that Congo will host a conference in April to discuss forming a special court.

KHAN: What we’re looking at is not just accountability in specific cases. That's the basic responsibility. But one is trying to have a wider effect, a more profound effect that stops these cycles of violence that have bedeviled this extraordinary, diverse, and rich land. And I think that requires more justice and more consistently applied justice in all parts of the country.

SOUND: CONGOLESE SOLDIERS

In the meantime, another rebel group also operating in the region’s North Kivu province, has raised the stakes with a brutal attack in February.

Last month, the Allied Democratic Forces beheaded 70 Christians in an abandoned church. The group has ties with the Islamic State, and Christian analysts say it wasn’t an isolated case.

The insurgents have killed more than 230 Christians since Christmas, according to Barnabas Aid.

Swiss Church Aid, a Protestant church mission, suspended its work in the same province last month after three of its workers were killed.

KRONZ: That’s not a new thing. Um, it’s, this is why we have to teach all that Christ commands. You know, the Gospel Commission tells us that we’re to go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them all that Christ commands. It’s not just enough for us to ask people to invite Jesus into their heart, because they have to still be taught.

Finally, over in the country’s northwest Equateur province, health authorities are still trying to unravel what’s causing a surge in an unidentified illness.

Affected residents across five villages have recorded symptoms like fever, stiff neck, muscle pain, vomiting, and diarrhea.

More than 1,000 cases have been reported since the first outbreak in January, with at least 60 confirmed deaths.

Health workers have ruled out Ebola and Marburg virus, while they continue to test for any food, water, or environmental contamination.

Dr. Ngashi Ngongo is with the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the disease trend in Equateur looks similar to an outbreak last year.

NGONGO: There were investigations that covered almost everything in Marburg and Ebola but at the end it turned out to be malaria.

In this year’s outbreak, more than half of the patients’ samples tested positive for malaria using rapid testing.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

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