wfn.org | Jungle trek leads missionaries to safety after Congo massacre

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Note #7433 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

23-September-2002
02359
  
Jungle trek leads missionaries to safety after Congo massacre 

by Cedric Pulford
Ecumenical News International
  
LONDON - More than 700 people who took to the jungle after a massacre at
their medical compound in the northeast corner of the Democratic Republic of
Congo have reached safety, mission sources in London have learned.  

The party of doctors, nurses and patients from Nyankunde made a dramatic trek
of about 170 kilometers through savannah and dense forest to reach the town
of Oicha, losing no member of the group on the journey.  

Among the group is a 75-year-old Canadian missionary, Marianne Baisley, who
was said to have refused evacuation on a light plane that took other
expatriates out of Nyankunde on Sept. 13 after the medical facilities were
destroyed in tribal fighting.  

Survivors reported that at least 1,000 people died in eight days of
inter-tribal strife, triggered by the presence nearby of gold, diamonds and
coltan, a valuable ore used in mobile phones.  

The turmoil was described in a refugee report from Oicha as "a long agony."  

Nyankunde is a major Christian center where at least eight mission bodies
work. The hospital, orthopedic center, pharmacy, schools, churches and the
Christian IPASC (Institut Pan-Africain de Sante Communautaire/Pan-African
Institute of Community Health) constituting the medical compound were
ransacked.  

The only water pipe supplying the compound was severed in the fighting, and
cholera has now broken out in the region.  

Although the medical party has reached safety, 2,000 people are understood to
remain at Nyankunde where, according to one refugee, "nothing at all is
left."	

There were conflicting reports about the fate of Salomon Isereve, principal
chaplain at the Evangelical Medical Center (CME), who was reportedly tortured
and burned alive. Another church worker, Henri Basimake, HIV/Aids coordinator
for the Anglican province of Congo, was shot dead after returning from a
conference in Nairobi.	

Medical personnel, students and patients were not spared in the violence.  

Patricia Nickson, the dean of the IPASC, which is supported by the
London-based Church Mission Society, was away from Nyankunde at the time
attending to duties at a hospital in England. 

She told ENI that despite the security risk she wanted to go to Oicha to join
the refugees.  

"If I am killed there are lots of other people to carry on, but while I'm
here I'm responsible for an institute," Nickson said.  

She believed that outside forces were behind the tribal warfare, saying that
the tribes, which include the Ngiti (Lendu) and Hema, had co-existed in the
area for centuries. 

The Church Mission Society, an evangelical Anglican group, has a long,
historic association with the region. In the 1870, it supplied the first
Christian missionaries to reach Uganda, across Lake Albert from northeastern
Congo.	

At Nyankunde the mission society supports community health projects while
other mission groups help to improve clinical medical facilities.  

A Church Mission Society spokesman told ENI: "The priorities are to restore
water and food at Nyankunde, followed by a restoration of the valuable work
there and a long?term solution to unrest in the region." 

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