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Fresh conflict in eastern Congo – 11 Apr 2009

Staff working with a Tearfund partner, Heal Africa in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s unstable eastern region are reporting a growing humanitarian crisis and evidence of torture. They runs a hospital in the regional capital Goma, is one of the few humanitarian organisations still operating there as intense fighting between rebel and government forces has moved closer to the city. They have been treating civilian casualties, including victims of torture and banditry.
 

An entire family were hospitalised after being attacked, with four children left seriously injured and their mother showing evidence of being tortured.The family reported their attackers had put a grenade under the bed of a sleeping six-year-old. Surgeons have been battling to save the boy’s life and that of his seriously injured older brother.Lyn added, `We pray they will survive. Such cruelty is incomprehensible. It has nothing to do with war, it is banditry and terrorism.’

Their assault has prompted 250,000 people to flee their homes, taking the total of displaced people in North Kivu to more than a million, leading Tearfund and other aid agencies to warn of an unfolding humanitarian disaster.

• More about: Congo, the Democratic Republic of the, Emergencies
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