wfn.org | CWS Responds to War-Related Health Emergency in DR Congo

[Carol Fouke <carolf@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227; news@ncccusa.org
5/11/01 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CWS RESPONDS TO WAR-RELATED HEALTH EMERGENCY IN CONGO (DRC)

May 11, 2001, NEW YORK CITY - Some 2.5 million people in the eastern half 
of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have died during the past three 
years as a direct result of warfare, 350,000 from violence but most from 
hunger and preventable disease - particularly malaria and diarrhea.

It may be the worst emergency to unfold in Africa in decades, concluded the 
International Rescue Committee (IRC) in May 9 report.  Between August 1998 
and April 2001, the IRC said, a total of 3.5 million of eastern Congo's 
19.9 million residents have died - 2.5 million more than expected.

About a million of the dead are children under the age of five.  In two 
regions - Kalemie and Moba - about 75 percent of children born during the 
war have died or will die before their second birthday, the IRC reported.

A protracted and violent conflict has raged in the DRC, Africa's third 
largest country with a total population of 50 million, since August 1998, 
when Rwandan and Ugandan forces took up arms against then President Laurent 
Kabila and occupied nearly half of the country.

The war -- involving at least seven neighboring nations and numerous rebel 
groups -- has forced some two million Congolese from their homes and into 
remote areas where they have little means of protecting themselves from 
disease.  Another 300,000 have fled the country as refugees.

In response to the health emergency in the DRC, two Church World Service 
partners - Interchurch Medical Assistance (IMA) and the Protestant Church 
of Congo (ECC) - are resurrecting the Basic Rural Health project, initiated 
as SANRU I in 1981.

With support from the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the 
U.S. Agency for International Development, they are re-establishing supply 
lines to 28 "health zones" throughout Congo and, over the next five years, 
will rebuild or re-establish 160 to 170 more, with the ability to assist 
more than 10 million people. IMA will manage the project.

This decentralization of health services will make primary health care 
accessible to more people, and will allow IMA member agencies and other 
partners to channel medicine and resources easily and effectively 
throughout the area.

Church World Service is responding ecumenically by addressing the needs of 
IMA and ECC that are not being met by federal grant monies.  Its $200,000 
program includes $150,000 for purchase of 24,428 mosquito nets - CWS's 
contribution to the under-funded malaria control portion of the project. 
 The remaining funds are to support IMA's management of the $26 million 
project.

-end-