Under any circumstances, it’s not an easy task traveling along muddy rainforest tracks by motorbike and crossing swollen rivers by dugout canoe. Now imagine doing it while carrying a refrigerator. This is exactly what UK native and Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) project coordinator Will Turner and his team will be doing for the next month as they mount an expedition to test 40,000 people in remote villages of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis).

CAFOD is concerned at reports of renewed fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The fighting broke out this week in areas west of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, between the Congolese army and the rebel group M23. People in towns and living in camps have been caught in the crossfire.

People in Mugunga camps I and III and in Ndosho on the outskirts of Goma reported hearing heavy shelling nearby. For many previously displaced by fighting, this will be the fifth or sixth time they have had to flee in the last two years.

Fighting between M23 rebels and government forces has intensified near Goma, the capital of the eastern province of Nord-Kivu, since 20 May. As well as causing new civilian casualties, the clashes and the actions of some rebels are endangering many journalists and the availability of diverse, freely-reported news and information.

Reporters Without Borders has conducted a series of interviews with Nord-Kivu journalists and has spoken by phone with two M23 officials, Bertrand Bisimwa, the rebel movement’s political leader, and René Abandi, who is in charge of its external affairs.

An effective Arms Trade Treaty that protects civilians from the devastating consequences of inadequately regulated arms transfers is urgently needed. One of the most important objectives of such a treaty must be to reduce the human cost of the availability of weapons. This can be achieved by setting clear norms so that transfers of conventional arms and ammunition are not authorized when there is a clear risk that the arms will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law.

HR/5135

Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Twelfth Session
7th Meeting (PM)

Member States , Intergovernmental Organizations, United Nations Agencies Weigh in on Relationship between Governments, Pastoralists

23 May 2013 – Arriving today in restive eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all the leaders of Africa’s Great Lakes region to throw their support behind a recently-signed peace accord which aims to ensure security, as well as development, for the long-troubled country.

In late April, residents across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were pleasantly surprised to receive phone calls from friends and relatives living in the remote northeastern corner of the country. For the first time, the people of Niangara, in the heavily-forested Haut Uélé District of Orientale Province, have access to a cellular communications network in their isolated community.

Geneva/Kinshasa (ICRC) – Inhabited areas north of the city of Goma, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were hit by shelling on 21 and 22 May. Fighting with heavy weapons resumed at the beginning of the week in the hills of Mutaho, Rusayo and Muja, barely 10 kilometres north-west of Goma.

UNHCR operational highlights

• 787 Congolese asylums seekers arrived in Burundi in April, bringing the total number of asylum seekers registred during the first four months of this year to 2327 individuals.

• 3 convoys of 411 Congolese refugees were organized from the transit centres of Cishemere and Kajaga to the new camp in Kavumu.