IRIN – Eight months after the end of joint military operations by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, many parts of Orientale Province, in northeastern DRC, are still in turmoil, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Attacks on civilians by Ugandan rebels and local militias have left 340,000 people displaced, and 30,000 refugees have fled to Sudan.

“Following attacks by the LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] in December, there has been a 9 percent rise in the number of displaced in Haut Uélé [near the border with Sudan], and an 11 percent increase in Bas Uélé [near the border with the Central African Republic] compared to earlier months,” said Jean Charles Dupin, head of OCHA in Orientale Province.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88082

IRIN – Rival ethnic communities in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo have clashed many times over the years, but most recently over fish, observers say.

More than 200 people have died and another 150,000 have fled to the neighbouring Republic of Congo (ROC) since October 2009, when fighting erupted between the Lobala and Boba clans in Dongo, Equateur Province.

The clash was triggered by two attacks against Boba villages, including one in July 2009, in which 200 homes were burnt down.

“The clashes could have been prevented – or at least curbed – had there been more oversight of the distribution of resources at the Iwandi pool,” said local analyst Polycarpe Nyalua.

Iwandi is one of the most prolific fishing spots along the River Ubangi which runs along the border between the two countries.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87961

IPS – The hundreds of savings and loan cooperatives operating in South Kivu should be providing an opportunity to develop agriculture and fight food insecurity in the province, but few farmers have been able to take advantage.

Félicien Zozo Rukeratabaro, a human rights advocate for Social and Rural Action, an NGO based in the province’s main town of Bukavu, says “not one small-scale farmer is able to access financial support or credit from any of these cooperatives, which are primarily concerned with speculative transactions and activities only of immediate benefit to themselves.”

Read more – http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=49784

The Congolese government’s military operation in eastern Congo, Kimia II, backed by United Nations peacekeepers and aimed at neutralizing the threat from a Rwandan Hutu militia group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), has resulted in an unacceptable cost for the civilian population, said 84 humanitarian and human rights groups in the Congo Advocacy Coalition today.

The coalition urged diplomats and UN officials, who are due to meet in Washington, DC, this week to discuss the situation in eastern Congo and the wider region, to take immediate steps to increase protection for civilians.

“The human rights and humanitarian consequences of the current military operation are simply disastrous,” said Marcel Stoessel of Oxfam. “UN peacekeepers, who have a mandate to protect civilians, urgently need to work with government forces to make sure civilians get the protection they need or discontinue their support.”

Read more – http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2009-10-13/dr-congo-civilian-cost-military-operation-unacceptable

For the second time this week, the United Nations refugee agency today warned more than 2,000 Congolese in Burundi not to return to the strife-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which they fled during ethnic fighting in 2004.

The latest warning from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) follows an incident yesterday when more than 400 Congolese from the recently closed camp in Gihinga, central Burundi, were stopped from entering their country by DRC immigration officials.

“UNHCR has repeatedly urged the refugees not to go back to their native South Kivu province in DRC for the moment, stressing that that under the prevailing security conditions neither the Government authorities nor UNHCR would be in a position to guarantee their safety on return,” agency spokesperson Andrej Mahecic told a news briefing in Geneva.

DRC immigration services said their actions were based on security concerns for the group. The refugees had boarded 11 trucks provided by Burundian government yesterday morning, leaving behind another group of some 500 refugees waiting for their turn to go home. When they reached the border they found it closed and the Burundian authorities took them back to Gihinga.

Read more – http://www0.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32486&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo

A United Nations assessment team has succeeded in restarting the disarmament and integration of some ethnic fighters into the national army in strife-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after they rejected the process or set preconditions.

The discussions led the Mai Mai Yakutumba to drop some preconditions, ironed out misunderstanding and resulted in the release by both the Yakutumba and another armed group, Forces républicaines fédéralistes (FRF), of more than 450 combatants for integration, according to the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC.

The Mission said the assessment was motivated by the reservations of some armed ethnic groups about disarming at a time of robust military operations by the UN and the national army against Rwandan Hutu rebel Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) in the Kivu provinces.

Read more – http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32470&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo

5 October 2009 – The United Nations refugee agency today warned more than 2,000 Congolese sheltering in Burundi against returning to their homes in conflict-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Congolese refugees from a region of South Kivu province which borders with Burundi have refused to relocate to a newly established camp further east and decided instead to return west to the Uvira region of South Kivu, their homeland.

For months, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Burundian authorities have led an intensive information campaign to prepare the refugees for voluntary relocation, part of a consolidation exercise involving the closure of the makeshift camp housing this particular group of Congolese until last week.

Read more – http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32425&Cr=Democratic&Cr1=congo