Category Archives: Democratic Republic of the Congo

The ‘qualifications passport’ scheme breaking down barriers for migrants

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Having their skills recognised is one of the main obstacles to employment faced by refugees in developed countries

The armed rebels had first ransacked the hospital where Timothée* worked as a doctor. Then, they went door to door with machetes, hunting down those seen as the wealthiest – the most educated first. When the house next door was burned down with his neighbours still inside, Timothée fled.

Without a chance to grab his passport or phone, Timothée ran through the darkness of the bush of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, knowing he might never see his family or his fiancee again.

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Ebola health workers killed and injured by rebel attack in Congo

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World Health Organization chief warns violence will harm efforts to deal with Ebola outbreak

Four health workers fighting the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been killed and five injured in an attack by rebel militia, the World Health Organization has said.

The attacks occurred early on Thursday morning in the restive east of the vast central African country.

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Polio outbreaks in Africa caused by mutation of strain in vaccine

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New cases of highly infectious disease that should be ‘consigned to the history books’ reported in Nigeria, the DRC, CAR and Angola

New cases of polio linked to the oral vaccine have been reported in four African countries and more children are now being paralysed by vaccine-derived viruses than those infected by viruses in the wild, according to global health numbers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners identified nine new cases caused by the vaccine in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and Angola last week. Along with seven other African countries with outbreaks, cases have also been reported in Asia. In Afghanistan and Pakistan polio remains endemic, and in Pakistan officials have been accused of covering up vaccine-related cases.

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Ebola staff in Congo on lockdown after angry residents storm UN camp

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Evacuation of responders in face of violent protests demanding protection from militia killings raises fears disease will spread

Ebola responders are on lockdown in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after angry residents stormed a UN peacekeepers camp in protest at fatal militia attacks on civilians, the World Health Organization has said.

On Tuesday, the WHO evacuated 49 non-essential staff out of the 120 people working on the epidemic in the city of Beni in North Kivu, one of the recurring Ebola hotspots.

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UK development bank accused of failure to safeguard Congolese workers

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British-backed plantation firm vows to address claims that underpaid palm oil workers have been exposed to toxic chemicals

The UK development bank has been accused of failing to protect workers from exposure to dangerous pesticides and paying “extreme poverty” wages on palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Human Rights Watch said the CDC group, along with three other European development banks, had failed to properly oversee its investments in Feronia, one of Africa’s largest palm oil companies.

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Children bear the brunt as the world’s biggest measles epidemic sweeps Congo

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Children under the age of five account for 90% of deaths as disease claims 5,000 lives in less than a year

More than 5,000 people, mostly children, have been killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in what is currently the world’s biggest measles epidemic.

Measles, which is preventable through vaccination, has spread to all 26 provinces of the country, which is also battling a 15-month-long Ebola epidemic.

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Facebook removes Africa accounts linked to Russian troll factory

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Fake networks in eight nations are connected to man allegedly behind disinformation empire

Facebook has taken down accounts linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin – the businessman allegedly behind Russia’s notorious troll factory – which were actively seeking to influence the domestic politics of a range of African countries.

The company said on Wednesday it had suspended three networks of “inauthentic” Russian accounts. The Facebook pages targeted eight countries across the continent: Madagascar, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya.

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Lake Chad shrinking? It’s a story that masks serious failures of governance | Oli Brown and Janani Vivekananda

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Our two-year study shows the lake has been stable since the 1990s. Costly ‘solutions’ shift focus from the complex causes of the region’s deadly crisis

Lake Chad is a hydrological miracle – a life-giving, freshwater lake in the Sahara desert. But the region around the lake has been engulfed in a violent crisis for more than a decade, which has left nearly 10 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Military crackdowns on insurgent groups such as Boko Haram have failed to end the violence. Bringing durable peace to the region requires unpicking a Gordian knot of many interlinked factors: poverty, sectarian mistrust, political marginalisation and corruption. The risks posed by the climate crisis to the rainfall-dependent livelihoods of the people of Lake Chad are an important strand of this challenge.

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Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of Congo – in pictures

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This is the 10th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s also the largest and longest ever. More than 2,000 people have died since the outbreak started in August 2018. As part of the UN Ebola emergency response, the Red Cross is working with the World Health Organisation and the ministry of health to help stop the spread of the disease. Infection can occur from touching the bodies of those who have died. This practice is part of traditional burial rituals in eastern DRC, so the rituals need to be modified so that family members can say goodbye to their loved ones without becoming exposed to the virus. The Red Cross has trained specialist burial teams in remote communities to safely bury people who have died of Ebola

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UK development bank launches inquiry after murder of Congolese activist

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Independent investigators to explore alleged involvement of security guard for palm oil company supported by CDC

An independent investigation has been launched following the alleged murder of a Congolese activist by a security guard in the employ of a palm oil company part-funded by the UK development bank.

CDC, which is wholly owned by the Department for International Development, appointed independent investigators to examine the circumstances surrounding the death of Joël Imbangola Lunea, a 44-year-old father of eight, in Bempumba on 21 July.

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Former minister arrested over alleged mismanagement of Congo Ebola funds

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Oly Ilunga detained in connection with $4.3m allocated for fighting the deadly virus

The former health minister for the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been arrested over the alleged mismanagement of $4.3m (£3.4m) dedicated to the Ebola response.

Oly Ilunga, who resigned as health minister in July having been removed from leading the Ebola response by President Félix Tshisekedi, has denied any wrongdoing.

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How snakebites became an invisible health crisis in Congo

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Daily life is fraught with danger for people living in remote areas of a country where health funding is as scarce as specialist medicine

All photographs by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

In the vast jungles that cover the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the world’s most invisible health crises burns on. The country’s extensive equatorial forests are home to numerous species of venomous snakes, but their habitat is shared by secluded communities that are being forced to look further and further afield for their resources due to poverty and the pressures of conflict and climate change.

It puts DRC at the centre of an issue Médecins Sans Frontières has called a “neglected crisis”: death by snake bite.

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‘Most renewable energy companies’ linked with claims of abuses in mines

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Corporate watchdog urges clean-up of supply chains as analysis finds weak regulation and enforcement has led to lack of scrutiny

Most of the world’s top companies extracting key minerals for electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines have been linked with human rights abuses in their mines, research has found.

Analysis published by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), an international corporate watchdog, revealed that 87% of the 23 largest companies mining cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc – the six minerals essential to the renewable energy industry – have faced allegations of abuse including land rights infringements, corruption, violence or death over the past 10 years.

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Ebola kills girl, 9, in Uganda as outbreak approaches 3,000 cases

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Doctors are battling to contain the virus and stop the epidemic spreading from the DRC to Uganda and Rwanda

A nine-year-old Congolese girl who tested positive for Ebola in neighbouring Uganda has died of the disease, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the current outbreak was approaching the grim milestone of 3,000 cases and 2,000 deaths.

Her death makes her the fourth case to cross into Uganda amid the continuing struggle to contain the deadly outbreak.

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Violence forces 1.9 million children out of classes in west and central Africa

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Unicef report points to three-fold increase in number of schools closed in the region in two years due to intensifying conflict

More than 1.9 million children are forced out of school across west and central Africa due to rising violence and insecurity, putting them at higher risk of recruitment by armed groups, the UN’s children agency has warned.

In an urgent report published on Friday, Unicef revealed that more than 9,000 schools have been shut down as of June this year in eight countries; Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.

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Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to new province as epidemic continues to spiral

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One woman dead after two cases are confirmed in South Kivu’s Lwindi district, near DRC’s border with Rwanda

The year-long Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to a new province, with two cases – one of them fatal – confirmed in South Kivu.

The confirmed cases were reported in the Mwenga area, some way south of the city of Bukavu, which sits on the country’s eastern border with Rwanda.

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Ebola now curable after trials of drugs in DRC, say scientists

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Congo results show good survival rates for patients treated quickly with antibodies

Ebola can no longer be called an incurable disease, scientists have said, after two of four drugs being trialled in the major outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were found to have significantly reduced the death rate.

ZMapp, used during the massive Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, has been dropped along with Remdesivir after two monoclonal antibodies, which block the virus, had substantially more effect, said the World Health Organization and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was a co-sponsor of the trial.

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Rwanda closes border with DRC over deadly Ebola outbreak

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Closure follows second Ebola death in densely populated city of Goma, on Rwandan border

Rwanda has closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a deadly Ebola outbreak that started a year ago has killed more than 1,803 people.

The closure came after a second death linked to the Ebola virus was confirmed on Wednesday in the densely populated Congolese city of Goma, which is on the porous border with Rwanda.

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Ebola: second death confirmed in Goma

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World Health Organization confirms a second person has died of the disease in a major transit hub in Democratic Republic of Congo

A second death linked to the Ebola virus has been confirmed in the densely populated city of Goma, located at the Democratic Republic of Congo’s porous border with Rwanda.

The first case of Ebola in Goma – an evangelical preacher – contributed to the World Health Organization decision to declare the Ebola crisis in DRC an international public health emergency.

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Are motorcycle taxis making the Ebola crisis worse?

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The Congolese trading city of Butembo relies on its ‘taxi-motos’ to keep business running, but the taxi unions are resistant to helping government Ebola efforts – and their bikes could be spreading the disease

Swarms of motorcycle taxis overloaded with passengers and goods weave their way through traffic in the eastern Congolese city of Butembo. Motorbikes far outnumber four-wheeled vehicles on the dusty roads of the regional trading hub, especially downtown, where drivers laden with cargo carve their way through crowded street markets.

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