wfn.org | CWS/NCCCUSA Work in Congo (Zaire)

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.
Contact: Carol J. Fouke, NCC, 212-870-2252

NCC7/1197      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

****************************************************
When listing organizations providing humanitarian 
response to the Democratic Republic of the Congo 
(formerly Zaire), please include:

Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, 
Elkhart, IN 46515
 Pledges/credit card gifts: 1-800-762-0968
****************************************************

CWS RESPONDS TO EMERGENCY NEEDS IN DEMOCRATIC 
REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

 NEW YORK, July 11 ---- Church World Service is 
joining with ecumenical partners to help meet needs 
for basic medicine, food, seeds and tools in the 
Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire).  
These materials will help that nation recover 
following 32 years of abuse and neglect by the 
Mobutu regime, ousted in May.

 "This is an emergency that has been happening 
for years," said Rick Augsburger, Emergency Response 
Director for CWS, the humanitarian assistance 
ministry of the National Council of Churches.  This 
"chronic emergency" has been exacerbated during the 
past few years by ethnic strife, civil war and the 
influx of refugees, he said.

Mr. Augsburger was part of an international, 
inter-agency assessment team, sent by ACT (Action by 
Churches Together), that spent nine days in the DRC 
in June assessing emergency needs.  CWS is an ACT 
member.

He described widespread malnutrition, a lack of 
basic medicines and medical supplies and a 
devastated infrastructure, along with the special 
needs of internally displaced Congolese.  

"The most critical needs we saw were in Eastern 
Zaire," he said.  For example, he visited a large 
hospital down river from Kisangani that serves 
villages up and down the Congo River.  "It was 
totally looted of medicines and equipment during the 
war by retreating forces of the former Army of 
Zaire.  And they are still trying to serve 
patients."

 CWS is supporting ACT's appeal for $2.2 million 
for a six-month emergency response program.  ACT and 
its members are working in cooperation with the 
Eglise du Christ du Congo, local church partners and 
related agencies.  (CWS also is providing support 
for a planned late-August meeting in Kinshasa of 
Congolese church leaders on the role of the church 
in the new DRC.)

 The emergency assistance will help lay the 
ground work for longer-term development in the DRC, 
Mr. Augsburger said.  "Now if the country can gain 
some sense of stability, the DRC can fix itself," he 
said, "but it needs the help of outside inputs to 
help make up for the difficulties of the past."

-end-
 -0-