26/11/12 Doctors Without Borders – DRC: "These People are Completely Dispossessed"

 

 What’s the situation where you are?

 

At the moment I’m in Rutshuru, the M23 stronghold, the eye
of the cyclone. The situation right now is rather quiet. In Goma, things have
been calming down slowly since the fighting ended and the gunfire has stopped.
Yesterday there were about 100 wounded, both civilians and military actors;
their wounds mostly from gunfire and shrapnel. The exact number of dead is
still unknown but there are bodies in the streets.

People remain fearful and the shops are still all closed,
and there’s no electricity or water anymore. There’s also a clear need for
surgical support. A lot of people who were displaced in July during the fall of
Rutshuru to the M23, and who settled on the edge of the city in Kanyaruchinya,
have gone to Goma or westward to Sake. They say that more than 55,000 people
are on the move.

 

What are you seeing in the streets, the camps,
the hospitals?

 

Kanyaruchinya camp is empty. Since the fighting stopped,
some people have come back up from the city to Rutshuru, their home turf. It’s
worth noting that these people are completely dispossessed—before this new wave
of violence, the camp wasn’t being maintained properly, so people were already
in a state of utter destitution.

I imagine that very soon the shops will open up again and
that the city will come back to life. But we are talking about a serious shock
here, and trust and the general atmosphere will take a while to stabilize, all
the more so as people are now talking about a counter-attack.

 

What’s MSF doing to respond to this emergency?

 

We’re putting a surgical support team in place in Goma, and
we’re also working with the displaced people. Today, we’re able to work more or
less as normal, but our teams are of course stressed out and worried. This is
literally a regime change—how’s the city going to function tomorrow? The
International Committee of the Red Cross has also got a surgical team here, but
a lot of organizations have evacuated so it’s a matter of waiting for them to
return.

Of course, we’re not waiting—we’re working! The health
facilities are still working, so MSF isn’t there to take care of all needs but
rather to provide support. As concerns the displaced, the situation should be
monitored closely, as we’re seeing some come back to Rutshuru rather than
resettling in Kanyaruchinya. Something to keep an eye on.

 

What are the most significant challenges for you
as MSF?

 

The most difficult thing is getting expatriate staff to
Goma as the context is changing quickly. The logistical constraints to reaching
certain areas can also complicate our efforts to size up needs or set up
activities. For example we wanted to get to certain displaced camps by going
round the lake by way of Bukavu, but that’s not possible for the moment. The
most important thing for us is still the security of MSF staff and of the
patients.