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31 December 2008
It was estimated in December 2008 that almost 1.4 million people were displaced by the various conflicts which have killed several million people and continue to affect the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The situation was dynamic with at least 400,000 returning home and at least 400,000 being newly displaced by armed conflict, generalised violence and widespread human rights violations during the year. The UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator described the situation in North Kivu Province in November 2008: “Congolese civilians found themselves in the worst of all worlds: subject to attacks, displacement, sexual violence and forced recruitment perpetrated by advancing rebel forces; and to acts of violence, rape and looting carried out by members of the official Congolese armed forces and Mai Mai and other militias.”
The majority of the new displacements were in North Kivu, followed by Ituri and Haut-Uélé Districts (Orientale Province) and South Kivu. People there have been displaced several times since the mid-1990s; the latest wave followed fighting between government forces and militia of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), and between the CNDP and the Hutu Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) and local Mai Mai militia groups. The violence and displacement in North Kivu between government and CNDP forces peaked between the end of August and the end of November. In Haut-Uélé, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) attacks led to the displacement of tens of thousands of villagers at the end of 2008, and DRC’s armed forces worked alongside those of Uganda and Southern Sudan to root the LRA out.
All these groups, including government soldiers, have frequently attacked civilians to seize food and belongings, or punish people for perceived or real allegiance to other groups. Armed non-state actors have also abducted children to fight. The government’s troops are ill-equipped, poorly trained, and barely paid. All of them prey on the population, and aim both to defeat historic enemies and secure territory in order to benefit from the extraction of natural resources.
Most IDPs live with host communities. In North Kivu, they have sought shelter in camps, with hosts in areas out of the immediate firing line, or in forests. The majority are supporting themselves or relying entirely on the limited resources of their hosts, as humanitarian access has been severely limited by the fighting.
Thus eastern DRC’s IDPs face a range of severe threats. IDP sites have come under attack. They have been victims of widespread killings, rapes, and the destruction and looting of their homes and camps. The vast majority of IDPs and returnees lack access to basic infrastructure such as health centres, schools and roads, clean water, food, seeds, tools, clothes and straw to build houses. In North Kivu, the conflict in 2008 led them to lose access to their fields and so miss the planting season, and caused the disruption of education for many children. There were many reports of separated families in 2008, and few IDPs in North Kivu had the identity documents needed to help them to be reunited.
IDPs at particular risk include children, and particularly those separated from their family, and female-headed households and pregnant women. Women and children are at great risk of sexual violence, and children risk being recruited in armed groups. People from ethnic groups which are in the minority in their displacement area are also particularly vulnerable.
The government has tasked the Ministry for Solidarity and Humanitarian Affairs to address the situation of IDPs, but it has had no impact and there has been no legislation to support their protection. Some national NGOs have distributed food and other items, provided counselling for rape victims, and training and education; they have also worked with international NGOs and UN agencies to register and monitor IDPs.
International responsibility for IDP protection has fallen in the first instance to MONUC. The UN peacekeeping mission has had some successes, but was overwhelmed during the second half of 2008 due to a lack of manpower and clear rules of engagement to protect civilians. The cluster approach was introduced in 2006 and did lead to a better-coordinated response. UN agencies and international NGOs have provided assistance to IDPs in zones they could access, and have made efforts to reach IDPs in host communities despite the access difficulties.
Where peace has returned to their areas of origin, people have been able to return home and restart their lives with very little external help. While Turkish Cypriots were displaced in the 1950s and 1960s into ethnic enclaves, both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots were displaced in 1974 when groups backed by Greece’s military government ousted the Cypriot leader, and Turkey sent troops to the island in response. Greek Cypriots fled south while Turkish Cypriots sought refuge in the north. They have been living separately ever since, divided by the “green line” patrolled by the UN Peacekeeping Force.
Talks to find a diplomatic solution failed and in 1975 the Turkish Cypriots announced the establishment of their own state, later to become the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC), which only Turkey has since recognised. With an estimated 25,000 to 43,000 troops from Turkey stationed in the north, the Government of the Republic of Cyprus considers this occupied territory, and the two sides have yet to reach a political solution.
While the TRNC authorities consider that displacement ended with the population movements achieved within the framework of the 1975 Third Vienna Agreement, the Government of the Republic of Cyprus maintains displacement persists as IDPs continue to be deprived of their right to property and return.
Despite continuing assistance, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus to most IDPs in areas under its control, there is still no mutually agreed mechanism for deciding property claims, and people's choice of residence is limited. The resolution of their outstanding problems depends on continued political will on both sides to reach a compromise and resolve the conflict. Involvement of the displaced people in the peace process would improve the chances that an eventual agreement would hold.
3 July 2009: Attempts to defeat armed groups cause widespread displacement
During 2009, army operations in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan Hutu militia, have caused massive displacement. Human Rights Watch has
reported that rebel forces and Congolese army troops have killed more than 1,500 civilians, raped thousands of women and girls, abducted hundreds of women and children and burned to the ground thousands of homes, prompting hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. It also found that UN peacekeepers had provided support to the army without exerting adequate pressure on it to stop rights violations and forced displacement.
In North Kivu, army troops are reported to have looted in recent days the town of Pinga, about 250 kilometres west of Goma, and held civilians at ransom and created panic in nearby villages,
causing renewed displacement. Some 1.4 million people were already estimated to be displaced in eastern DRC as of March 2009.