Helping the Displaced: An Internal Paradox
by Kristin McHugh

Since 1998 up to three million people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the African country formerly called Zaire. Millions more have become internally displaced or have sought asylum in neighboring countries.

As the widest interstate war in modern African history, the conflict—mainly centered in eastern Congo—has involved nine African nations and has directly affected the lives of some 50 million people.

Since widespread fighting has stopped, a transitional government, the United Nations, and humanitarian aid groups have shared the difficult task of helping Congo's war-shattered victims rebuild their lives.

But poor infrastructure, ethnic strife, and dozens of armed rebel factions are among the many obstacles that remain on Congo's path to peace.

Impromptu Camps
Eastern Congo's ethnically divided town of Bunia was ground zero for some of the worst fighting in the northeast area of the country.

Strategically located near Lake Albert and the Ugandan border, Bunia is in the heart of Congo's mineral rich Ituri district. The wealth of gold, coffee, oil, and coltan—a mineral vital for cellphones and laptop components—fuels the longstanding dispute among Ituri's 13 different tribal factions and nearby neighbor Uganda.

The UN Security Council authorized its current peacekeeping mission to Congo in 1999. About 10,500 troops are assigned to the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an operation commonly referred to by its acronym MONUC.

The few hundred stationed in Ituri in the early months of 2003 were helpless as militants from Bunia's rival Hema and Lendu tribes fought for control of the city. Reports of mass rape, massacres, and even cannibalism became commonplace throughout Itrui. By the first week of May, thousands sought refuge from the violence in or around UN-controlled facilities.

By mid-2004, between 10,000 and 15,000 people remained at an impromptu camp nestled among the rolling hills adjacent to Bunia's airport. Many are within a few miles walking distance from their original residence.

Shatal, a petite woman with carefully cropped hair, arrived at the camp in late 2003. One of many women in brightly colored frocks waiting in line to fill water buckets near the airport camp's entrance, Shatal said today she is more worried about security than access to clean drinking water.

"I heard shooting two nights ago," said Shatal, who didn't give her last name. "It is usual. We are afraid, very afraid. I want them to work hard to stop the night shootings. I wish to go home."

Shatal is among the millions of Congolese that pose a major problem for the United Nations.

Strangers in Their Own Land
"What we've seen in recent years is the phenomenon of internally displaced people," said Nancee Oki Bright, chief of MONUC's Humanitarian Affairs Section. "What we've seen recently in many countries is this phenomenon of civil wars. As we've seen these civil wars generate, we've also seen people displaced within a country. For instance, you might have someone or groups of people are actually attacked by armed factions. They will go and seek refugee in another part of their own country. And those people become displaced internally, because they haven't crossed the border."

And therein lies the problem to helping the estimated 3.4 million civilians displaced by the Congo war.

The United Nations Refugee Agency, backed by international laws passed more than 50 years ago, has a clear mandate to assist civilians who flee across an international border to escape war, famine, and other natural disasters. But there is no universal mandate or agency to help civilians displaced within their own country.

"When you are internally displaced, you're still under the rules of your government," said Bright. "Whereas when you are internally displaced, you are in many ways actually more vulnerable because it's quite possible you could be displaced again. And that's what we've seen in the DRC, this phenomena where people are displaced 15 times."

Just down the road from the main entrance to the airport camp, coils of razor wire and stacks of sandbags mark one in a series of UN checkpoints scattered throughout Bunia. These military bunkers along with strategically placed armored personnel carriers, roadside watchtowers, and well-armed MONUC foot patrols leave the impression Bunia is an armed camp rather than a small Congolese town.

This show of force may give the illusion of security, but it is little comfort to 20-year-old resident Innocent Umirande.

"Even here in Bunia, everyday there are shootings," Umirande said. "Everyday, night shootings. Bunia still has a lot of militiamen. But to disarm these militiamen, there are many—more than 1,000 here in Bunia. They are armed. They hide their weapons in the ceilings of their houses, maybe in small rivers, maybe in the graveyards. At night they take their weapons and start shooting. And MONUC isn't able to stop them."

Nighttime Raids
It is no accident that Bunia's camp is located next to the airport. MONUC's large presence at the airport provides visible security, but the airport's location on the outskirts of town leaves it vulnerable to outside attacks. Nighttime raids, shootings, and rapes are commonplace in Bunia.

Rick Neil of Oxfam-Great Britain, a relief organization that oversees emergency water, sanitation, and hygiene programs in the airport camp, says MONUC hasn't always been quick to respond to such incidents.

"I don't want to run down MONUC," he said. "They've been doing a very nice job. They've got a lot going on. There's lots of reasons why the response might not be very quick. But there are certain instances where their response has not been particularly rapid."

Addressing the needs of the internally displaced is one of the major hurdles the United Nations must surpass in its effort to stabilize Congo.

Officially, the UN's Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, is in charge of organizing assistance to Congo's internally displaced. On the ground, that responsibility is shouldered by UN agencies such as UNICEF and the World Food Program and dozens of independent humanitarian aid organizations such as Oxfam.

All struggle to balance the overwhelming needs of the displaced with few financial resources and even less manpower.

'There Are No Roads Here'
And in Congo's troubled South Kivu Province, the United Nations and aid agencies must also battle the harsh terrain.

"There are no roads here," said Jospeh Inganji, an officer in MONUC's humanitarian affairs section in Bukavu. "There are roads in town. But no roads in the interior. It is in the interior where the needs are enormous. It is where the IDPs are. You find it is really difficult for humanitarian aid agencies to deliver to the IDPs. However, they try their best to reach the people."

MONUC is a military mission with a mandate to protect civilians, UN personnel, and UN operations. The political objectives are often a source of tension between MONUC and humanitarian aid agencies, which remain staunchly neutral in regions of conflict.

MONUC's Bright said her organization's humanitarian section is taking a different approach to civilian aid by operating within any peacekeeping mission.

"In some ways we're trying to make a peacekeeping mission have a humanitarian face and at the same time make the military understand they can't do everything with the humanitarians because it really does impinge on the notions of neutrality and impartiality," Bright said.

In the South Kivu province, this responsibility falls to Inganji. He acts as a mediator between the MONUC and local aid agencies, bridging the gap by sharing resources and security information.

On a recent day Inganji and a handful of MONUC military observers lent a helping hand to local employees of the California-based agency International Medical Corps, or IMC.

'Difficult to Deliver'
A trip to the village where IMC distributed nonfood items such as pots, pans, and plastic illustrated the enormous challenges faced by NGOs, MONUC, and other aid agencies trying to deliver aid to the internally displaced in Congo. The journey took well over an hour, over nearly impassable roads.

Among those receiving the aid items is Bangalabuya, who escaped the fighting near her home by walking more than 10 miles with her husband and six young children to Bitale.

"I have been here two months," she said. "I don't know when I can go home. There is still insecurity."

As Bitale's aid distribution continues, a crowd gathers near a young man named Bolola. He's playing an aging red electric guitar, minus the necessary amplifier.

As Bolola strums on, Ingangi climbs back into his truck for the two-and-a-half hour, 37-mile journey back to his office in Bukavu. In doing so, both Joseph and his boss, Nancee Oki Bright, know there will be countless more aid operations like this one before the millions of displaced Congolese can safely return home.

They also know, the United Nations will never be able to serve the millions more requiring assistance around the world.

"People often expect too much from the UN," Bright said. "In one way it presents us with a challenge. On the other hand it can be a very sad situation because you know it's difficult to deliver. But nobody understands that. They want the solution now."

Related Web Links
The United Nations Mission in Congo
http://www.monuc.org

The Global IDP Project
http://www.idpproject.org

Secretary-General's Special Representative on Internally Displaced
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/7/b/midp.htm

Brookings-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement
http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/idp/idp.htm

© 2004 by The Stanley Foundation
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