wfn.org | Zaire Fighting Intensifies

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3271 notes).

Note 3268 by UMNS on Nov. 4, 1996 at 16:15 Eastern (4124 characters).

SEARCH: Zaire, refugees, fighting, United Methodist
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Linda Bloom                         554(10-21-71B){3268}
          New York (212) 870-3803                     Nov. 4, 1996

Questions about projects remain
as fighting intensifies in Zaire

     NEW YORK (UMNS) -- When Wembo Alexis, M.D., left Goma, Zaire
Oct. 25 to attend a conference in Guatemala, the United Methodist
Children's Village at Goma was still secure.
     In intervening days, however, the fighting between Zairian
soldiers and the Banyamulenge, a Tutsi group, has intensified in
the Eastern region of Zaire. During an Oct. 31 interview here at
the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries headquarters,
Wembo did not know if the village remained open or if his wife,
Annie, and three children had left the area.
     Meanwhile, an Oct. 31 New York Times article reported that
the Tutsi rebels had closed in on Goma, fighting the Zairian Army
for control of its airport and threatening hundreds of thousands
of refugees in the process.
     Richard Williams, the board's coordinator of Volunteers for
Africa, said he had received an Oct. 30 fax from United Methodist
Bishop Forrest Stith reporting that most United Methodist property
in the region seemed to be destroyed or confiscated.
     Stith and his wife, Jo, are based in Nairobi, Kenya, through
1997 as project managers for the denomination's Bishops' Appeal
and Campaign for Africa.
     United Methodist mission work in Eastern Zaire began soon
after the United Nations set up refugee camps there in 1994, when
more than a million refugees flooded in from Rwanda. Later, they
were joined by refugees from Burundi. Among the Hutu refugees to
Zaire were Rwandans who played a role in genocidal attacks against
the Tutsis there, along with guerilla groups from Burundi.
     Ethnic conflict between Hutus and Tutsis has continued in
both Rwanda and Burundi. International opinion has been divided on
whether the refugees should be forced to return to their own
countries.
     The Rev. John McCullough, the board's associate general
secretary of mission personnel, noted that his agency's "posture
has been simply to care for people during this period when they're
exiled from their own country."
     One objective of the Board of Global Ministries has been to
help relieve the burden placed on the local population in Eastern
Zaire. Already somewhat impoverished, according to McCullough, the
region has suffered to a greater extent since the refugee
explosion there.
     In contrast, the United Methodist congregations -- that
started as lay movements in Uvira, Bukavu and Goma -- have grown
considerably. "It's the crisis itself,` I think, that has really
propelled their progress," he said.
     The Jerusalem United Methodist Church in Uvira -- that seats
1,000 and houses a school for refugee children -- was dedicated
last January. A building for the Goma congregation has been under
construction.
     Wembo, a United Methodist from Central Zaire, settled in the
region 10 years ago. He and his wife began work with the refugees
in 1994. He is the site manager for the denomination's work in
Goma, introducing volunteer teams to the refugee camps; and Mrs.
Wembo is director of the Children's Village, a tent camp for
orphaned and abandoned children also dedicated last January.
     Another Zairian United Methodist, Muembo Omesombo, M.D., is
administrator of the United Methodist clinic in Bukavu. He has
been on a speaking tour in Illinois.
     The Uvira clinic is run by a Ugandan United Methodist, Wanume
Kale, M.D. Board officials have received no word from him since
fighting between the Tutsi rebels and the Army began in Uvira,
according to Williams.
     To escape the fighting, both refugees and locals have
followed a path from Uvira to Bukavu to Goma, according to Wembo.
An estimated 700,000 refugees are now in the Goma area.
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