Katanga Province, D.R.Congo
The Forgotten People of the Forgotten War
March 16-17, 2006
Dubie - By far one of the more disturbing places in Congo. The few UN troops that were deployed here are way too dispersed to be effective. In Dubie, roughly 16,000 people are on the verge of death due to starvation. The graveyards are full and being filled as people have very little to eat or no food source at all, other than what is given to them by aid agencies. Only one aid agency, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), was in Dubie at the time of this envoy’s visit. The last food distribution, about five months ago, was only a half a ration for each person, lasting everyone only two weeks. The people had been trying to live off of nothing for seventeen weeks at the time we arrived. Only recently, in May 2006, there was a WFP airdrop of food into this area, meaning their starvation continued on for an additional month after our envoy’s departure. There was an overwhelming suffering among these people, basically in a death camp forgotten by the rest of the world. The people that collectively spoke out against the atrocities that had been committed against them by the Mai Mai and the government’s troops were likely imprisoned after we left Dubie. This has certainly been the case in the past when anyone speaks out against the soldiers in a public forum.