11/20/2006

Contacts: Rick Neal and Andrea Lari
ri@refugeesinternational.org or 202.828.0110

After years of war and crisis, the situation is gradually improving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The relatively peaceful response to the announcement of the results of the October 29 second round presidential election is just the latest sign that the long period of violence and displacement may finally be ending. In this hopeful environment, Refugees International recently completed a three-week mission to the DRC, focusing on the return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their home communities.

The first week of the mission was devoted to the problem of returns to communities that were on the front line in the 1998-2003 war. In a visit to the Sankuru area of Kasai Oriental Province, RI saw how formerly displaced people have returned home and started to rebuild on their own, but are still struggling to grow enough food to feed themselves. A survey by the Dutch agency Cordaid conducted last May documented high rates of malnutrition in the region, but there is very little help available. Front-line communities overall have received minimal help in rebuilding, as most attention has been focused on the more dramatic humanitarian situation in the east of the country.

A woman in the village of Omesende brought her two-year old daughter out to meet us: the girl was the size of a nine-month old baby, too weak to walk, her mouth twisted in silent cries. Fever and a lack of medicine in the village had simply exacerbated an already precarious nutritional situation, with potentially deadly consequences. Another woman explained to RI how lack of agricultural tools and the poor quality of seeds are preventing her from cultivating enough to meet her household’s needs.

We continued our investigation into the return of displaced people the following week with a visit to South Kivu Province, which hundreds of thousands fled for the safety of Tanzania during the war. In March, RI found that returnees did not have the help they needed to restart their lives and had to sell part of their return package in order to reach their village of origin. During this month’s visit, it was encouraging to see that this situation has improved since then, including an increased presence of humanitarian agencies providing basic services to recipient communities. However, less than half the anticipated number of refugees have returned from Tanzania this year; if the country remains calm following the presidential elections of this month and the number of returns surges significantly, the assistance available in home communities could be easily overwhelmed.

Throughout the mission, RI also looked into the virulent problem of rape. In most places, women explained that rape was prevalent during the war, but had since largely stopped. A disquieting exception was the town of Lodja, in Kasai Oriental, where a recent survey by the UN Population Fund found that the incidence of rape was still high, despite the end of hostilities two years ago and the withdrawal of armed forces from the area. In every area visited, local women's groups are trying to identify and help rape survivors, and UNFPA is starting to provide some support for them. Unaddressed for now, however, are the underlying factors related to rape in Congolese society and how to address them.

These preliminary findings suggest that the following actions are necessary:

• The immediate deployment of assessment missions to front line communities to identify needs following the return of displaced people and ex-combatants since the end of the war.
• Greater leadership in making sure that the return of refugees, internally displaced people, and ex-combatants is safe, voluntary, and sustainable. In particular, the UN Development Program has not yet been able to play a leading role in this area, despite its position as the lead of the Early Recovery Cluster.
• Immediate expansion of UNFPA's support for local groups working with rape survivors, and data collection about rape.