Salon.com > Democratic Republic of Congo

UN: Global refugee crisis worst in decades

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:11:00 +0000

According to the UNHCR's latest global trends report, we are currently in the midst of the worst global refugee crisis in 20 years, with over 45 million currently displaced people recorded. This includes 15.4 million refugees, 937,000 asylum seekers, and 28.8 millioninternally displaced people.

The report points to longterm conflicts in Mali, Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo as contributing heavily to the number of displaced peoples. António Guterres, UN high commissioner for refugees and head of UNHCR, said "These truly are alarming numbers. They reflect individual suffering on a huge scale and they reflect the difficulties of the international community in preventing conflicts and promoting timely solutions for them." The Guardian reported:

Congolese rebels seize strategic city and international airport

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:56:00 +0000

GOMA, Congo (AP) — A rebel group created just seven months ago seized the strategic provincial capital of Goma, home to more than 1 million people in eastern Congo, and its international airport on Tuesday, officials and witnesses said, raising the specter of a regional war.

Explosions and machine-gun fire rocked the lakeside city as the M23 rebels pushed forward on two fronts: toward the city center and along the road that leads to Bukavu, another provincial capital which lies to the south. Civilians ran down sidewalks looking for cover and children shouted in alarm. A man clutched a thermos as he ran.

By early afternoon the gunfire had stopped and M23 soldiers marched down the potholed main boulevards, unimpeded. Their senior commanders, who the United Nations has accused of grave crimes including recruiting child soldiers, summary executions and rape, paraded around the town in all-terrain vehicles, waving to the thousands of people who left their barricaded houses to see them.

The United Nations peacekeepers, known by their acronym MONUSCO, were not helping the government forces during Tuesday's battle because they do not have a mandate to engage the rebels, said Congolese military spokesman Olivier Hamuli, who expressed frustration over the lack of action by the peacekeepers.

US record on child soldiers mixed

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 19:39:00 +0000

The U.S. will continue to exert pressure on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to end their use of child soldiers. Elsewhere, however, where U.S. interests are vested (such as in Yemen) the widespread use of child soldiers has not received the same attention.

Late last week president Obama announced that for the second year in a row, the U.S. would withhold portions of U.S. military assistance from the DRC. The U.S. has also refused to train a Congolese battalion until the country signs a United Nations action plan to end its use of child soldiers.

Jo Becker, the children’s rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch noted: