UN: Congo crisis worse than Darfur

[seriousstan]

Eastern Congo is suffering the world's worst current humanitarian crisis, with a death toll outstripping that in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, a top United Nations official said on Wednesday.

UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said that over the last six years the toll in the Democratic Republic of Congo amounted to "one tsunami every six months" -- a reference to the December disaster which left about 300,000 people dead or missing in Asia.

"In terms of the human lives lost ... this is the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today and it is beyond belief that the world is not paying more attention," he told a news conference.

Egeland was speaking during a visit to Geneva for talks with UN and other relief workers on improving the global humanitarian aid system can be improved.

http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=15669

[Guckert]

1. If they find oil then they would be on the GOP's"freedom and liberty" list

[seriousstan]

2. And if the world puts them on a money for food policy the UN will care.

[Guckert]

4. Especially Halliburton and Little Yellowback Cheney.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Congo War Is World's Top 'Forgotten' Crisis

By Ruth Gidley
LONDON (Reuters) - Brutal conflicts in Congo, Uganda and Sudan are the world's three biggest "forgotten emergencies," each dwarfing the toll of the Asian tsunami but attracting scant media interest, a Reuters poll of experts showed on Thursday.

War in Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed at least 10 times as many lives as the December tsunami yet remains almost unheard of outside of Africa, key players in the aid world said. "It's the worst humanitarian tragedy since the Holocaust," said John O'Shea, chief executive of Irish relief agency GOAL. "The greatest example on the planet of man's inhumanity to man."

Reuters AlertNet, a humanitarian news Web Site run by Reuters Foundation, asked more than 100 humanitarian professionals, media personalities, academics and activists which "forgotten" crises the media should focus on in 2005.

After Congo, they chose northern Uganda, west and south Sudan, West Africa, Colombia, Chechnya, Nepal and Haiti as the most neglected humanitarian hotspots.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7862859&pageNumber=0

Poll: Congo War Is World's Top 'Forgotten' Crisis
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1299318

[seriousstan]

5. At least the UN knows about it and are talking about how to improve the

non-existing help.

[Demonaut]

6. I didn't know the Congo had problems with steroids too

My God,....the humanity!













and we're fucking around with pro athletes.....what a fucking joke!

[bread_and_roses]

7. I started to read an article...I couldn't finish

it is beyond belief.

[chlamor]

8. UN Report: Humanitarian Crisis in Congo Worst in the World

UN reports atrocities in Congo

Sarah Left and agencies
Thursday March 17, 2005

Armed militia groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo kidnapped hundreds of rival tribe members, tortured, mutilated, raped and decapitated their victims, and even boiled alive and ate two girls in front of their mother.

The humanitarian crisis in north-east Congo's embattled and lawless district of Ituri has replaced Sudan's Darfur region as the worst in the world, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said yesterday, launching the report on abuses allegedly committed by the Forces of Patriotic Resistance in Ituri (FRPI). He said the fighting is killing thousands every month.

<snip>

Nearly 4 million people have died in Congo since the start of a six-nation war that began in 1998, most succumbing to hunger and disease brought on by the conflict. Though foreign armies left Congo under a peace accord in 2002, fighting has continued between government troops, militias and armed tribal groups.

Women in the region have been brutally victimised, and not only by the militias. An internal UN investigation concluded that peacekeepers had engaged in widespread sexual abuse of women in Congo.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/congo/story/0,12292,1440139,00.html

[struggle4progress]

9. kick