 |
|
Date: November 4, 1996 
Escalating conflicts in the eastern region of Zaire have shut down nearly all refugee and relief services being provided by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries there.
As of Oct. 28, it was believed the United Methodist Children's Village for orphaned refugee children in Goma was still operating, but Deborah Bass, a board staff executive, acknowledged the situation could change.
Bass, who visited the area for a few days in mid-October, said staff at the village -- that currently houses 22 children --were committed to keeping it open as long as safely possible. Otherwise, the children will be dispersed to local families. The fact that a group of Zairian soldiers had set up camp adjacent to the Children's Village was a concern, she added.
New tensions ignited in the region -- that had become home to many refugees fleeing ethnic violence in Rwanda and Burundi -- when the Zairian government decided to disarm the Banyamulenge, a Tutsi group that has lived in the South Kivu province for generations. On Oct. 8, a Zairian official ordered all Banyamulenge to leave the country or face an all-out war.
Since then, fighting has broken out on the streets in Uvira and near Bukavu, sporadic violence has occurred around Goma, international relief agencies tending the refugee camps have evacuated their personnel and hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to other areas.
According to Reuters News Service, when the last aid workers flew out of Bukavu on Oct. 28, the United Nations food warehouses were looted immediately.
Evacuation of United Methodist missionaries and volunteers began at the end of September. Removed were a five-member "Volunteers for Africa" team; missionary couples Niels and Birgitte French, and Lydia and Joseph Templeton and, on Oct. 25, Kinge Namanga, coordinator of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) firewood project in Bukavu.
The Rev. John McCullough, the board's associate general secretary for mission personnel, reported that other project staff -- United Methodists from Zaire and Uganda -- have requested assistance so that they can leave the area.
The Board of Global Ministries has implemented major mission work in the region since September 1994. More than 200 volunteers have provided health care for refugees; assisted in the distribution of resources; built the Jerusalem Church and United Methodist Guest House in Uvira; renovated health clinics in Uvira and Bukavu; provided primary services to Camps Kimbumba, Biriba and Panzi; established a primary school in Uvira; and created the Children's Village in Goma. A United Methodist Church in Goma has been under construction, primarily by volunteers from First United Methodist Church in Jefferson City, Mo.
"The spreading conflict has jeopardized all of these initiatives," McCullough wrote in an Oct. 28 Volunteers for Africa letter. "We are bracing for the real possibility that when the violence subsides much of our efforts will have to begin anew."
He stressed that the board, in partnership with the United Methodist Church in Zaire, "has every intention of returning to the Eastern Corridor."
McCullough noted that supplies for work in Zaire will be collected and held at the UMCOR Depot in Baldwin, La., until the projects resume.