ReliefWeb

Kinshasa, 17 January 2019 – Since the end of December 2018, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been running an emergency medical response to provide primary healthcare and to support secondary healthcare for people affected by last December’s eruption of violence in Mai-Ndombe Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The dire living conditions that the displaced people currently face make them particularly vulnerable to poor weather conditions and to diseases. In order to prevent a degradation of their health, MSF is calling on other organisations to accelerate their humanitarian responses to these needs.

“At this time of year the water is submerging the islands in the river,” says one of the MSF nurses running mobile clinics on the Congo river, where many have fled. “People are seeking shelter in half-finished huts, which do not properly protect them from the rain, the cold nights and the wind - and we are in peak malaria season. Every day we see the impact of these living conditions on people’s health. Last week we were doing almost 200 consultations per day, and more than twenty percent of the patients were children under five years old.”

Between the 4th and 10th of January 2019, the MSF mobile clinic teams performed 1,175 consultations, during which more than a third of the patients were diagnosed with malaria or respiratory infections.

On the small islands as well as inland there is an acute need for shelter, particularly plastic sheeting and mosquito nets. The situation is also worrying with regards to food; depending on where people fled to, they have either lost access to their fishing waters or to their fields, as well as the ability to access the market in Yumbi town.

“Over an eight day period our teams identified 20 cases of malnutrition, of which nine were severe; and we are concerned about a potential deterioration if food distributions and other nutrition support are not rapidly implemented,” says Sophie Sabatier, Coordinator of MSF’s Congo Emergency Team, calling on all humanitarian organisations to launch their responses as quickly as possible to provide these displaced people with the basics they need to survive.

The violence that erupted mid-December in the Yumbi region caused thousands of people – reportedly between 20,000 and 30,000 – to flee their homes. Despite the current calm, a high tension is palpable in Yumbi and its surroundings, and a swift return of people to their homes is unlikely.

“When we arrived in Yumbi, we saw entire neighbourhoods razed to the ground and totally deserted,” says Sabatier. “There are accounts circulating of many hundreds of people killed in a period of just a few days. It is hard to imagine the situation returning to normal at this moment. And that is why people’s health will continue to be at risk and why the need for a humanitarian response is not going away any time soon.”

MSF is also donating drugs and medical material to support the provision of medical care for people that were wounded in the violence, at the General Hospitals of Bolobo and Yumbi and in the Health Centre in Mansele. Out of the 60 wounded seen by MSF teams when they first arrived on the 22nd of December, ten particularly seriously wounded patients, including three children and four women, were referred to better equipped facilities where they underwent urgent surgical care.

“Most of the wounds were caused by weapons such as machetes, but we also saw several gunshot wounds and severe burns” says Sabatier. “Beyond the physical wounds, we are worried about the psychological consequences of the violence. Our teams already see many signs of mental trauma among our patients.”

A psychologist has recently joined the MSF team to assess the extent of the mental healthcare needs and to set up an appropriate psychological support for people who require such assistance.