Heavy fighting over the last days in Rutshuru and Kiwanja

08 November 2008

MSF teams are continuing their work in Goma and in other towns and villages in North Kivu. The organization remains very concerned about the many people still on the move after fleeing recent fighting.

Some displaced people are returning to their places of origin around North Kivu. Yet many of the displaced and local residents continue to be in urgent need of food, clean water, healthcare and basic items like blankets and shelter materials.

Heavy fighting continued yesterday in Rutshuru and in nearby Kiwanja, and the situation there remains tense. Thousands of people have been displaced yet again by the fighting. An MSF mobile clinic team that attempted to go to Kiwanja today was turned back by fighting.

Rutshuru hospital is full of displaced people, and MSF has set up tents to shelter them. Over the last two days, medical teams have treated 43 war-wounded patients at the hospital, and more are arriving. Since Thursday, MSF has also treated more than 50 patients at two health centers in Rutshuru, half of them children. MSF is the only organisation currently working in the town.

There was fighting in Kibati today as well, sending displaced people fleeing to nearby Goma. MSF teams were there running mobile clinics, providing clean water, and installing a new cholera treatment centre in Kibati.

Ten cholera patients fled a treatment facility in Kibati when the fighting broke out, and MSF was able to transfer another 10 patients back to the cholera treatment center at the Goma general hospital. Saturday teams will set up an ambulance service to transport cholera patients to Goma while the situation in and around Kibati remains unstable.

West of Goma, MSF teams are starting mobile clinics in the Mushake area, and in Karuba village. MSF is providing mental healthcare to displaced people in Shasha camp, near Saké. Further south, in Kirotshe, the organization will provide surgical and emergency support at the local hospital.

In Minova, also west of Goma, an MSF team continues supporting a cholera treatment center, where an average of 50 new cases are being treated each week.

North of Goma, Kitchanga and Mweso are relatively calm. There MSF is providing primary and secondary healthcare and running mobile clinics. In Masisi, 80 km northwest of Goma, a six-person MSF international team and 80 Congolese colleagues are providing healthcare at a hospital and health centre.

Further east, on the Ugandan borders, MSF teams are assessing the condition of thousands of Congolese refugees and displaced people.

MSF is continuing to explore the area, as security conditions permit, identifying people with unmet health needs following recent fighting and displacement. Some 52 international staff are working with MSF in North Kivu now, including doctors, nurses, logisticians, and administrators, among others.