(Vatican Radio) The humanitarian crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
was top of Pope Benedict XVI’s concerns this Wednesday as he began his greetings in
Italian with another appeal for aid for the people of the nation, the scene of armed
clashes and violence. Emer McCarthy reports:
“A large part
of the population lacks the primary means of subsistence” said the Pope, adding that
“thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes to seek refuge elsewhere”.
Pope Benedict renewed his call for dialogue and reconciliation and he asked
the international community to work to “provide for the needs of the population”.
The
23 March (M23) rebel movement pulled its fighters out of the North Kivu provincial
capital Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Saturday after seizing
it from fleeing U.N.-backed government forces and holding it for 11 days.
Goma
lies at the heart of Congo's eastern borderlands which have suffered nearly two decades
of conflict stoked by long-standing ethnic and political enmities and fighting over
the region's rich resources of gold, tin, tungsten and coltan - a precious metal used
to make mobile phones.
Successive attacks by rebels, militias and government
soldiers have made the region notorious for mass killings,recruitment of child soldiers
and rape used as a weapon of war.
The U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA says at
least 130,000 people have been displaced and are now in sites and camps in and around
Goma. U.N. officials said a camp about 15 km outside Goma had been raided by unidentified
gunmen late on Friday. Several women were raped and food and supplies stolen. In addition,
there are an estimated 841,000 people who were already displaced before this latest
wave of insecurity.
The M23 is composed of Tutsi former rebels that had been
integrated into Congo's army under a previous peace deal mutinied in April. In a development
likely to stoke diplomatic tensions, a group of experts tasked by the U.N. Security
Council has presented new evidence alleging M23 received "direct support" from the
Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) to capture Goma. Rwanda has strongly and repeatedly rejected
previous allegations made by the same U.N. experts that the Rwandan government has
created, equipped, trained and directly commanded the M23 rebellion in Congo's North
Kivu. Similar accusations against Uganda's government have also been denied by Kampala.