DRC: Cholera threatens victims in refugee camp

(SomaliNet) Amid fears that renewed fighting could scatter infected patients and launch an epidemic, doctors are struggling to contain an outbreak of cholera in a sprawling refugee camp just outside the DRC\'s eastern provincial capital Goma.

After rebels and pro-government militiamen executed civilians in two waves of terror that a top UN envoy to the DRC has called war crimes, thousands packed church services on Sunday to pray for peace at the Kibati camp and in Goma.

The killings highlighted the inability of undermanned UN peacekeepers to protect civilians or to halt a 10-week-old rebel offensive that has convulsed eastern DRC and forced more than 250 000 people from their homes.

About 50 000 are crowded at Kibati, some taken into log cabins by villagers, others living in tents or hastily built huts. Thousands sleep out in the open, huddled under pieces of plastic sheeting as rain pours down.

Doctors Without Borders said it had treated 13 new cases of cholera in Kibati yesterday and seen 45 cases since Friday. Dr Rafaela Gentilini said shortages of water and latrines were making the outbreak \"really dangerous\".

In a tented clinic, nurses put patients on intravenous drips. With treatment, patients can recover from cholera quickly. But Gentilini said they were transporting seriously ill patients to Goma hospitals each night, as fighting has left them unable to treat people at the camp at night.

Dozens of people have died of cholera in recent weeks elsewhere in eastern DRC.

Doctors also fear an epidemic north of Goma behind rebel lines, where access has been limited by fighting and rebels have driven tens of thousands of people from camps where outbreaks had been contained.

Infected patients can spread the contagious disease, caused by unsanitary conditions, just with a handshake.

Tens of thousands of refugees have fled from Kibati twice in the past fortnight to avoid fighting between the DRC\'s army and rebels led by a renegade general.

At Kibati\'s Roman Catholic Church, where candles burnt in supplication, people prayed that a fragile ceasefire between rebels and government forces would hold.

Down the road, both sides faced off just 800m apart, but there was no fighting.

UN officials, meanwhile, say they are investigating alleged war crimes in the past few days at Kiwanja, 80km north of Goma. They say residents first were terrorised by Mai Mai militia who killed people accused of supporting the rebels. Then the rebels won control and killed those they claimed had supported the militia.

The rebels also looted and burnt homes and a hotel, witnesses said.

Many victims were killed execution-style, with bullets to the head, residents said. Some said the rebels dressed the dead, most of them young men, in military uniforms.

At least 26 people were killed, UN investigators said. But New York-based Human Rights Watch said it was trying to confirm reports of more than 50 dead, and blamed both sides for the atrocities.

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda already is accused of crimes against humanity, and the DRC\'s government issued an international arrest warrant against him after he defected from the army in 2004. - Sapa-AP