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Protecting the Mountain Gorillas of Virunga
Managing a Humanitarian Emergency
Today was a quieter day, consolidating the incredible efforts that the team have put into handling the emergency. The remaining families arrived safely yesterday evening on three trucks from Rumangabo, and all the families are now in relative safety in Goma.
This is, of course, our first venture into a full-scale humanitarian operation, and we’re learning as we go along. 600 people, mainly women and children, who haven’t eaten for 36 hours. We’ve been given a plot of land that was kindly offered to us by a politician from the area, but it has no facilities (no water, no toilets, no shelter, nothing), and so we have had to create everything very fast before getting into real trouble with disease and malnutrition.
The team was split up into small, very effective units. Serge from FZS, and Bosco have been organising the transports. Balemba, Amir, Pierre, ACF’s Serge, ACF’s Eddy, FZS’s Bita have been purchasing equipment and food and getting the camp set up and running. Diddy and Ephrem are looking after the 43 rangers who remained behind to protect Rumangabo from armed men intent on pillaging the station.
Balemba talks to a family
Robert Muir from FZS has done a fantastic job mobilising the humanitarian aid workers. We spent the day with a wonderful lady from the International Medical Corps, who has been helping us to keep the epidemics at bay. She is completely overworked, but has nevertheless managed to give us a lot of her time explaining the basic needs for internally displaced people. I never imagined so much was required. Fortunately Joel, the nurse from Rumangabo is at hand and we have established a field clinic onsite. We now have an agreement with the local clinic, and IMC will be helping us with some of the costs, which are really building up (people under these levels of stress fall ill very quickly).
Bita and Balemba Receive a Donation From Locals
In the meantime, today has been relatively peaceful around the station at Rumangabo. The UN peacekeepers were able to negotiate the retreat of the rebels from the area. With Norbert, my second in command, we were able to make a quick visit to talk to the rangers and assess their living conditions. Morale is surprisingly good, given the ordeal of the last few days. They were very relieved to hear that their families are safe in Goma. They are also absolutely committed to protecting their station. They have completely run out of rations, so we’re sending a load up by vehicle tomorrow.
The area around Rumangabo is swamped with armed men, intent on pillaging the most vulnerable. A band came to the station yesterday and started breaking into the main building. The rangers fired in the air to scare them away. The bandits fired back in all directions. We heard later that they hit one of their own, killing him.
So it looks like things may begin to settle down. It’s an uneasy peace, but hopefully a situation that will allow us to go back to our business of protecting the park within a few days. We’ve made the decision to move the families out of the camp within a week. They will either go to an established refugee camp, where the big humanitarian agencies will provide them with food and healthcare, or hopefully, the situation will be sufficiently peaceful for us to be able to take them back to their homes at Rumangabo. In the meantime, the work continues, and we try to catch some rest where and when we can. This is Amir at five o’clock this afternoon, after three days without much sleep:
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Protecting area no. 58 for one month
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Ally R 25 $ - Protecting area no. 16 for one month
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News from Congo
- UN Says 160 Women Raped Each Week in the Congo's Kivu Provinces - BusinessWeek
- One by one, rebels desert from army in Congo - Washington Post
- St. Michael's to host symposium on Congo Wednesday - BurlingtonFreePress.com
- Congo-Kinshasa: Lubanga Witness Says He Was Paid US $200 To Tell Lies - AllAfrica.com
- From 'Oprah' to building a sisterhood in violent Congo - Sarasota Herald-Tribune
- Congo-Kinshasa: ICGLR to Meet On Illegal Exploitation of DRC Minerals - AllAfrica.com
- World Bank injects Shs200b into Nusaf - Daily Monitor
- Katanga posts profit on improving output - Reuters
- From 'Oprah' to Building a Sisterhood in Congo - New York Times
- Congo Lifts Ban on Exports by 16 Mining Companies - BusinessWeek
This website was funded by the European Union and the Prince Bernard Nature Fund.
7 Responses to “Managing a Humanitarian Emergency”
you guys are doing a great job…
thnx for the frequent updates
stay safe!
Hello, Emmanuel! You and all your team are obviously doing fantastic humanitarian work there; you have all my admiration for rising to such a difficult challenge. Good luck and take care. Iris
I can’t even begin to imagine the situation. Keep up the excellent job of managing this crisis.
It’s so nice to see the locals contributing towards relieving some of the suffering that these families are going through. It’s clear they don’t have much, but they give what they can and that is a very beautiful thing. I’m wishing you all well and hoping things calm down enough soon, so that these families can go back home. Thank you for keeping us updated on the situation. Lisa, California
[...] the Virunga National Park rangers and their families are still safe in Goma and you can see photos here where Amir [...]
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Click on In the news: Congo the natural park more threatened of world FR2 in the page of this site.
[...] My Virunga « Managing a Humanitarian Emergency [...]