Category Archives: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Viruses do not take breaks. The world can learn from how the DRC is beating Ebola

Posted on by

The African conflict zone has shown resilience and resourcefulness – and leaders tackling Covid-19 should heed its example

The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has ended. Thursday marked 42 days since the last person with Ebola was discharged from care, double the maximum length of time it takes for symptoms to appear. Nearly two years of hard work and leadership by the communities in DRC has paid off, with the end of the first Ebola outbreak in a conflict zone.

It’s a time for celebration but not complacency. Viruses do not take breaks. DRC’s 10th Ebola outbreak may have come to a close but an 11th, in the north-west part of the country, was detected on 1 June. Cases are appearing 240km away from Mbandaka, the centre of this latest outbreak.

Continue reading...

Uganda reopens border to thousands of people fleeing violence in DRC

Posted on by

Call for other African countries to reopen for refugees, after crossings were shut to stem the spread of coronavirus

Uganda has temporarily opened its border to thousands of people fleeing deadly ethnic clashes in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Ugandan government closed its reception centres at border crossings in March in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Continue reading...

Wars without end: why is there no peaceful solution to so much global conflict?

Posted on by

A new study shows that 60% of the world’s wars have lasted for at least a decade. From Afghanistan to Libya, Syria to Congo DRC, has endless conflict become normalised?

Libya’s civil war entered its 7th year this month with no end in sight. In Afghanistan, conflict has raged on and off since the Soviet invasion in 1979. America’s Afghan war is now its longest ever, part of the open-ended US “global war on terror” launched after the 2001 al-Qaida attacks.

Yemen’s conflict is in its sixth pitiless year. In Israel-Palestine, war – or rather the absence of peace – has characterised life since 1948. Somalis have endured 40 years of fighting. These are but a few examples in a world where the idea of war without end seems to have become accepted, even normalised.

Why do present-day politicians, generals, governments and international organisations appear incapable or uninterested in making peace? In the 19th and 20th centuries, broadly speaking, wars commenced and concluded with formal ultimatums, declarations, agreed protocols, truces, armistices and treaties.

Continue reading...

DRC has seen epidemics before, but Covid-19’s toll on older people leaves me sleepless

Posted on by

Many of the people I support in Kinshasa have no money, no soap, no water – and when they are struggling to breathe, no ventilators

We’re used to emergencies and people dying in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whether it’s a result of the long-running conflict or Ebola, cholera and malaria. But coronavirus has knocked us for six, because it has affected people we are very close to.

I’ve been working in development for decades, but I have to admit I have shed tears these past few weeks.

Continue reading...

Pollution causing birth defects in children of DRC cobalt miners – study

Posted on by

Researchers link exposure to mining pollutants to greatly increased risk of conditions such as spina bifida and limb abnormalities

Thousands of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are being exposed to dangerous levels of toxic pollution that is causing birth defects in their children as they mine for cobalt used to make rechargeable batteries for smartphones, laptops and electric cars, a new medical study has found.

Research published in the Lancet last week found that local people working in mines in the African “copperbelt”, a mining region stretching across Zambia and the DRC, are at significantly higher risk of having children born with serious birth defects.

Continue reading...

Twelve rangers among 16 killed in ambush at DRC gorilla park

Posted on by

Sixty Hutu rebel fighters suspected of attack on civilians in Virunga national park

Suspected Hutu militiamen have killed 16 people, including 12 rangers, in the Virunga national park, a Democratic Republic of the Congo government official has said, in the deadliest attack in the park’s recent history.

The park in eastern DRC, home to critically endangered mountain gorillas as well as hundreds of other rare species, has faced repeated incursions and attacks by local armed groups.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus in Africa: what happens next?

Posted on by

As Covid-19 creeps across the region, fears mount over how it will unfold. Will a young population help stem the spread of disease, or will it unleash catastrophe on creaking health systems?

Just seven weeks after Africa recorded its first case of Covid-19 – an Italian national in Algeria – the virus is creeping across the continent, infecting more than 10,000 people and causing 487 deaths. Three of the region’s 54 countries – São Tome and Principe, Comoros, and Lesotho – remain apparently virus-free.

“Case numbers are increasing exponentially in the African region,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa. “It took 16 days from the first confirmed case in the region to reach 100 cases. It took a further 10 days to reach the first thousand. Three days after this, there were 2,000 cases, and two days later we were at 3,000.”

Continue reading...

Human rights activist ‘forced to flee DRC’ over child cobalt mining lawsuit

Posted on by

Landmark legal action against world’s biggest tech companies lead to death threats, says activist Auguste Mutombo

A Congolese human rights activist has said he was forced to flee the country with his family after being linked to a lawsuit accusing the world’s largest tech companies of being complicit in the deaths of children in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In December, the Guardian revealed that a group of families from DRC were launching landmark legal action against Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft and Dell. They claim they aided and abetted the deaths and injuries of their children, who were working in mines that they say were linked to the tech companies.

Continue reading...

Snapshot sisterhood: women train the lens on women – in pictures

Posted on by

To mark International Women’s Day, ActionAid is staging a photography exhibition that celebrates female trailblazers in poor countries – from the Guatemalan hip-hop artist who uses her music to champion feminism, to the founder of Kabul’s first yoga studio. All of the images, which are on show at the Oxo Tower in London until 8 March, are taken by female photographers

Continue reading...

Gare de Lyon in Paris evacuated after fire outside station

Posted on by

Fire reportedly started by protesters opposed to concert nearby by Congolese singer

Police evacuated the Gare de Lyon in Paris after scooters and rubbish bins were set alight outside the station, reportedly by protesters opposed to a concert being given by a Congolese singer.

Photos on social media showed flames reaching several metres into the sky and a cloud of black smoke around the station, which was evacuated at the height of rush hour.

Continue reading...

Congolese torture survivor gets Home Office reprieve

Posted on by

Whistleblower granted refugee status after hard-won campaign against deportation

A torture survivor from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is celebrating after a Home Office U-turn allowed him to stay in the UK.

Otis Bolamu, 39, who lives in Swansea, was detained just before Christmas in 2018. The Home Office had planned to deport him to DRC on Christmas Day that year.

Continue reading...

Yemen heads list of countries facing worst humanitarian disasters in 2020

Posted on by

Venezuela also in top five as IRC’s David Miliband warns of devastating impact from war, floods, droughts and disease

Yemen has topped an annual watchlist of countries most likely to face humanitarian catastrophe in 2020, for the second year running.

Continued fighting, economic collapse and weak governance mean that more than 24 million Yemenis – about 80% of the population – will be in need of humanitarian assistance this year, according to analysis by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which found that another five years of conflict could cost $29bn (£22bn).

Continue reading...

‘We were so close’: how unrest in Congo thwarted the battle against Ebola

Posted on by

World Health Organization rues spike in violence that impeded efforts of health workers when outbreak was almost under control

The men who came to the village of Ntombi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in mid-December aimed to spare no one.

Militants with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), one of dozens of armed groups operating in DRC’s North Kivu, they hacked to death women and children, killing 22 people in a single incident in one of a series of attacks over the course of a weekend that left 43 dead in total.

Continue reading...

How the race for cobalt risks turning it from miracle metal to deadly chemical

Posted on by

As a case in the US alleges links between tech companies and child miners in Congo, the Guardian’s global environment editor assesses the dangers of element in high demand for batteries

If the prophets of technology are to be believed, the best hope for solving the climate crisis is ever more efficient batteries. But the race to produce enough materials for this energy-storage revolution is creating a host of other environmental problems, as cobalt-producing nations like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Cuba are discovering.

Lung disease and heart failure have been linked to high levels of this element, while the mines that produce it are blamed for devastated landscapes, water pollution, contaminated crops and a loss of soil fertility. Scientists are also investigating a possible link to cancer.

As with any chemical, the risks depend on the amount and duration of exposure. Cobalt is a metal that occurs naturally in rocks, water, plants, and animals. It is less toxic than many other metals. At low levels, it is beneficial to human health and is a component of vitamin B12.

Related: Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

Continue reading...

I saw the unbearable grief inflicted on families by cobalt mining. I pray for change

Posted on by

When Raphael turned 15, he started digging tunnels at the cobalt mine where he worked – two years later he was dead

Bisette sits before me, her face drawn with woe. Even though this is my second research trip to the cobalt provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I am ill-prepared for the torment I will witness. We thank Bisette for her courage, for we know she is fearful that even a rumour that she is speaking to us could result in brutal reprisals against her and her family. She inhales sharply and recounts a tale of unimaginable grief.

Raphael was born to Bisette’s sister, but after both his parents died when he was a baby, Bisette raised Raphael as her own son. She says he was a bright and cheerful child. Raphael loved to learn but, when he was 12 years old, the family could no longer afford the $6 (£4) a month required to send him to school. Instead, Bisette says Raphael did what most children in his village had to do: he went to work as a surface digger at a nearby industrial cobalt mine near Kolwezi.

Continue reading...

Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

Posted on by

Dell, Microsoft and Tesla also among tech firms named in case brought by families of children killed or injured while mining in DRC

A landmark legal case has been launched against the world’s largest tech companies by Congolese families who say their children were killed or maimed while mining for cobalt used to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars, the Guardian can reveal.

Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC by human rights firm International Rights Advocates on behalf of 14 parents and children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The lawsuit accuses the companies of aiding and abetting in the death and serious injury of children who they claim were working in cobalt mines in their supply chain.

Continue reading...

Spike in Ebola cases alarms health officials in DRC

Posted on by

Many cases blamed on a single individual who appears to have caught virus for second time

Health officials are investigating an alarming spike in Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with many blamed on a single individual who appears to have contracted the disease for a second time this year.

Amid the struggle to bring the 16-month outbreak under control, the World Health Organization noted an almost 300% increase in cases in the last three weeks, with 17 of 27 linked to a single chain of transmission.

Continue reading...

Ebola responders face deadly attacks. We must step up security in DRC

Posted on by

The devastating disease can’t be stopped unless more protection is provided for patients and health workers

Entering the city of Goma as night fell, I saw the red lava glowing atop nearby Mount Nyiragongo – an ominous reminder of the insecurity hovering over the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s volatile east.

But a manmade – not natural – terror is keeping health workers in DRC awake tonight.

Continue reading...

Record rise in attacks on healthcare workers leaves ‘millions at risk’ – UN

Posted on by

Increase in violent conflict combined with effects of climate crisis make outlook bleak for world’s poorest people, says report

Attacks on healthcare workers have reached a record high according to a UN report that predicts a “bleak outlook” for the world’s poorest people due to intense armed conflict and the climate emergency.

The number of highly violent conflicts has risen to 41, from 36 in 2018, causing deaths, injuries, significant displacement and hunger, the UN’s global humanitarian overview 2020 report found.

Continue reading...