KINSHASA, Congo, JAN. 13, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Caritas launched the first phase of aid for 60,000 displaced persons — 10,000 families — fleeing violent attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
An estimated 150,000 people have left their homes after more than 400 people were killed in Christmastime massacres by the Ugandan rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The United Nations reported today that since September, the rebels have killed more than 530 people and kidnapped another 400 in the region.
Last Friday, Caritas began to distribute clothes, eating utensils, water containers and shelter materials to 2,000 families in Doruma, 1500 in Faradje, 1,000 in Dungu and 500 in Isiro.
Once this phase is completed, Caritas plans to help 5,000 more displaced families in other regions of the Diocese of Isiro-Niangara and Doruma-Dungu.
Caritas is thus responding to violence in Congo on two separate fronts. Eastern Congo is facing the crisis of those displaced at the hands of General Laurent Nkunda, while the displacement caused by the Ugandan rebels is in Congo’s north.
