Internet also remains broken in provincial capital and only mobile telephony networks work, with M23 fighters apparently in control of “an important part of the city” After intense clashes with the Congolese armyReported the United Nations agencies on Wednesday.
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) Aid teams “cannot move freely to support hospitals, even ambulances cannot work. It is a situation which, in public health, is a nightmare, “ said Dr. Boureima Hama Sambo, who represented in the DRC.
“Vulnerable people need us”
Talk to PK Press ClubDr Sambo added: “We just hope that the situation will come back to normal for the government … Vulnerable people really need us. “”
The conditions in the provincial capital Goma remain “disastrous”, he added, without running water, reduction of electricity and trapped civilians-including health professionals.
Echoing these concerns, a senior the United Nations peacekeeping warned that the level of suffering among those taken in violence was “unimaginable”.
Vivian van de Perre, special deputy representative of protection and operations in the United Nations stabilization mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monusco) said late Tuesday that it needed “urgent and coordinated international action” To stop the fighting between the M23 rebels supported by Rwanda and the Congolese forces while they were fighting for the control of Goma.
Massive displacement and fear
Before M23 fighters ended with Goma, more than 700,000 internal people lived around the provincial capital. But hundreds of thousands have fled in anticipation of clashes between the rebels supported by Rwanda and the DRC troops, which aroused a renewed alarm about the spread of deadly disease.
“When you have up to 700,000 people living in camps, you can imagine human suffering,” said WHO manager PK Press Club,, pointing towards “a lot of [disease] epidemics “in northern and southern Kivu – two regions rich in minerals near the Rwanda border, where dozens of armed groups have influenced for decades.
Always present illness
Repeated Mass movement in the DRC has created ideal conditions for the spread of many endemic diseases In the camps and surrounding communities of Kivus, including cholera (more than 22,000 cases and 60 deaths in 2024), measles (nearly 12,000 cases and 115 deaths) and malaria, as well as chronic malnutrition of children .
In August of last year, the director general of the OMS Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said that the MPOX epidemic is an emergency of public health of international concern.
Despite an initial “robust” response to the MPOX threat by the WHO and the national partners who were coordinated from Kinshasa and offices on the ground in Goma and in southern Kivu, Dr. Sambo warned that MPOX patients had fled at least one camp treatment center and now lived in the host communities And with families.
“So, we are fear that the disease will spread largely in the communities, but at this stage, we cannot say because we have not been able to get there and assess what is happening today.”
