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MSF launches Condition Critical, a website that gives people from Democratic Republic of Congo the opportunity to speak out about their lives.
Activities 2008
East and Northeast DRC
For the population living in the east and northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 2008 was a bleak year. In January, a peace agreement signed in Goma between the Congolese army and various armed groups brought a glimmer of hope to the people of North and South Kivu. However, sporadic fighting continued throughout the year until full-scale war resumed at the end of August. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced to flee the violence and most aid organisations had to suspend their activities.
MSF activities in 2008 gradually increased across the provinces of North and South Kivu. In Rutshuru, a town about 43 miles north of Goma, the MSF team continued working in the hospital during the periods of heaviest fighting. More than 3,700 operations were carried out in Rutshuru Hospital, 19 per cent of which were for gunshot wounds, reflecting the high level of violence.
MSF emergency teams developed a measles vaccination campaign targeting 800,000 children under fifteen
Photo by Yann Diplo/MSF
MSF opened a programme in Kabizo to manage a measles epidemic and provide healthcare to internally displaced people who had recently arrived in the area. The MSF team had to evacuate from Nyanzale several times for security reasons during the last four months of 2008.
An MSF team started working in April in a hospital in Mweso. A team was already working in Kitchanga Hospital, northwest of Goma. Between them, they conducted more than 550 major operations, 120 of which were war related.
In Masisi town, about 50 miles northwest of Goma, MSF admitted more than 500 patients a month to the hospital.
Years of conflict in the district of Ituri, in northeast DRC, had come to an end in 2005, but at the beginning of 2008 fighting between militias and the Congolese army broke out, forcing up to 100,000 civilians to flee. MSF teams have worked in Gety Hospital and launched mobile clinics in Songolo and Soke to bring healthcare to about 50,000 displaced people and refer patients to Bunia hospital. In Bunia, 11,500 adult patients and 26,000 children under five years old were admitted to Bon Marché Hospital.
In December 2008, Uganda, DRC and Sudan launched a joint offensive against Ugandan rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). In response to military operations against them, in September LRA fighters started to perpetrate acts of extreme violence on the civilian population of Haut-Uélé district. Hundreds of men, women, and children were killed and many young men were enrolled by force into the LRA.
By the end of the year, more than 100,000 people were displaced and left largely unprotected from assailants.
North and South Kivu
Further south, MSF worked in the hospitals of Kirotshe and Minova in North Kivu, and Kalonge in South Kivu. In Minova, MSF had carried out 34,000 consultations by the time the project closed in December. By the end of the year, MSF had admitted more than 4,000 patients to Kalonge hospital, providing among other things surgery, deliveries and treatment for malnutrition.
In a highly insecure and rapidly changing situation, running mobile clinics, assessing new areas and quickly re-locating teams are key to providing an effective response. MSF teams ran mobile clinics and supported health centres in villages and camps around Rutshuru, Nyanzale, Kabizo, Kayna, Mweso, Kitchanga, Pinga, Masisi, Kirotshe, Kalonge, and Minova. MSF also provided latrines and access to clean water in various locations such as Kitchanga, where more than 70,000 displaced people had gathered in camps.
In 2008, more than 6,700 victims of sexual violence received specialised medical care and counselling in various MSF programmes across North and South Kivu. In Nyanzale alone, more than 3,500 victims were treated; 1,450 in the areas of Kitchanga and Mweso.
In August heavy fighting broke out, leading to disruptions in humanitarian aid. Hygiene conditions deteriorated and access to clean water for displaced people was reduced, which resulted in an increase in the number of people contracting cholera. In response, MSF treated more than 2,280 patients in Rutshuru and Buturande.
The weak healthcare system in South Kivu was further stretched by large groups of Congolese refugees returning from camps in Tanzania and Burundi. MSF continued to provide support to the hospital and a cholera treatment centre in Baraka, Fizi region. In Minova, MSF responded to a cholera outbreak by treating more than 800 patients.
In North Kivu, MSF teams also treated malnourished children in various supported health clinics and vaccinated more than 215,000 children against measles.
MSF teams ran mobile clinics in several locations around the town of Dungu and in Doruma, Bangadi and Faradje. However, MSF medical activities were hampered by extreme insecurity in the region. Teams could move only to remote areas by plane, where they were able to stay for only a short time. Despite the insecurity and logistical challenges, MSF has been able to screen 21,600 people and treat more than 680 patients for sleeping sickness in Haut-Uélé.
In Opienge, Tshopo district, an MSF team provided some 5,500 consultations for civilians affected by fighting between the national army and local militias.
Katanga
In the first months of the year, MSF teams responded to outbreaks of cholera in the south eastern cities of Lubumbashi, Likasi, and Kolwesi. Further north in the Tanganyika region, several MSF teams vaccinated half a million children of between six months and 15 years old against measles during the summer of 2008.
Although the conflict in Katanga ended in 2006, the medical situation remains precarious. MSF works in three hospitals in Shamwana, Dubie and Pweto, as well as in 13 health centres. MSF handed over Kilwa hospital in June. Among the focuses in these facilities are maternal healthcare, including emergency obstetrics, and mental-health care in Shamwana and Dubie.
MSF continued to treat patients with HIV/AIDS in Kinshasa, the capital city, as well as in Bukavu and Bunia in the east. In December 2008, MSF handed over its Bukavu project to a partner organisation and local health authorities.
Two MSF clinics in the northern city of Kisangani treated an average of 5,000 patients monthly for sexually transmitted infections, and more than 120 patients a month were hospitalised at the MSF hospital in Lubutu, Maniema.
In stable areas of DRC, healthcare needs remain huge and MSF teams constantly responded to medical emergencies. In December 2008, central DRC was again hit by an epidemic of the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever. An MSF team responded by isolating and caring for those who may have contracted the disease, and controlled the outbreak.
MSF has worked in DRC since 1987.