38,000 Die Each Month in Congo

The Halifax Chronicle Herald. Jan. 7, 2006 page A8

38,000 die each month in Congo

The Lancet study said the deaths counted were "excess" deaths that would not have occurred if the situation in Congo were normal.

Rampant disease has created "world’s deadliest humanitarian crisis" study

By TODD PITMAN The Associated Press

DAKAR, Senegal — War-ravaged Congo is suffering the world’s deadliest humanitarian crisis, with 38,000 people dying each month mostly from easily treatable diseases, a study published Friday in Britain’s leading medical journal said.

Nearly four million people died between 1998 and 2004 alone — the indirect result of years of ruinous fighting that has brought on a stunning collapse of public health services, the study in the Lancet concluded.

The majority of deaths were due to disease rather than violence, but war has cut off or reduced access to health services for millions in the impoverished country the size of Europe.

Most deaths reported were due to "preventable and easily treatable diseases," the study said. Malaria, diarrhea, respiratory infections and malnutrition topped the list.

Major fighting ended in Congo in 2002 but the situation remains dire because of continued insecurity, poor access to health care and inadequate international aid. The problems are particularly acute in eastern Congo.

"Rich donor nations are miserably failing the people of (Congo), even though every few months the mortality equivalent of two southeast Asian tsunamis plows through its territory," the study said.

Backed by about 15,000 UN peacekeepers, Congo’s government is struggling to re-establish authority across the country ahead of elections expected later this year, the first in decades. Militiamen still roam huge swaths of the east, formerly controlled by several different rebel groups whose leaders have been allotted top government posts.

The study was based on a survey of 19,500 households across the country of 60 million between April and July 2004. Health Ministry workers and staff of the aid group International Rescue Committee conducted the interviews.

The results showed Congo’s monthly mortality rate was 40 per cent higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa — 2.1 deaths per 1,000 people, or the equivalent of 1,200 fatalities per day, compared with a continental average of 1.5 deaths per 1,000.

Mortality rates were highest in Congo’s eastern provinces, which have been wracked by fighting and lawlessness for a decade. There, death rates were 93 per cent higher than the sub-Saharan Africa average.

"The persistently high mortality in . . . Congo is deeply disturbing and indicates that both national and international efforts to address the crisis remain grossly inadequate," the report said.

The survey is the fourth of its kind conducted in Congo, Africa’s third-largest country. The International Rescue Committee conducted three earlier surveys, the last of which in 2004 said that six years of conflict had claimed 3.8 million lives, mostly due to disease and food shortages.
Congo’s government dismissed the report.

"I consider that a big lie," said Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi. "These figures are very exaggerated. All over the world, people die of disease, it’s not just Congo.

"It’s known that (aid) agencies have often played with the figures . . . to get financial support," the minister added.

The Lancet study said the deaths counted were "excess" deaths that would not have occurred if the situation in Congo were normal.

Much of Africa has grappled with conflict or natural disaster — drought-induced food shortages in Niger last year, fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region and in northern Uganda. But Congo "remains the world’s deadliest humanitarian crisis," the study said.

"Improvements in security and increased humanitarian assistance are urgently needed." Congo suffered back-to-back wars: The first was in 1996-1997 when Rwandan-backed rebels swept the country to overthrow dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. A second 1998-2002 war sucked in the armies of half a dozen African nations.

Fighting led to mass displacement and a collapse of public health services, rights abuses and an increase in rape. Some remote areas are still cut off from contact with the outside world.

The study can be viewed in full on the web at:

http://www.thelancet.com/

comment:

By

F. Stanley Boyd

The heroic hotelier in the acclaimed film "Hotel Rawanda" puts the issues in Africa in a context when in a recent interview with Catherine Monk of The National Post he said:

"Behind every African country, there is a superpower... propagating a certain reality, and empowering a given regime."

Mr. Rusesabagina, pictured above, points to the lingering wars and unrest in Congo, Sudan, Burundi and Ivory Coast as current hot spots, and the entire continent is suffering he says.

"That's why I am here,' meaning in Canada. 'I am the messenger."

The suffering and the stakes are too high for the West to hide from the reality of its imperialism and that reality is the difference between life and death in Africa.