|
Media Statement, 7th September 2006
The United Nation’s front man, Jan Egland, today
applauded GOAL’s distribution programme in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo which supports the distribution of kits (seeds
and tools) to displaced people, in preparation for their return
home.
On a visit to conflict-ravaged Manono, North Katanga,
the GOAL DRC team briefed the aid chief and a high level UN delegation
on the difficulties facing civilians whose homes have been destroyed
in the conflict, and who are now living in the bush, reliant on
aid agencies for survival.
“In conjunction with Irish Aid and the UN’s
Food and Agriculture Organisation, GOAL’s programme helps
people get crops in the ground before the rains come, so that these
vulnerable civilians can provide for themselves,” Dr Mike
Woodman who manages GOAL’s medical program in the DRC explained.
The DRC is emerging from seven years of war, which
has contributed to the deaths of approximately 4 million people
- 98% of whom died from disease and malnutrition. Covering three
health zones, GOAL is the only aid agency with a significant presence
operating in these areas where security remains a major issue.
Although the conflict officially ended in 2003, some
600 children continue to die each day. “It is children who
suffer the most where more than 20 per cent die before their fifth
birthday, and one in 10 die in their first year of life,”
he explains.
Dr Woodman urged Mr Egland to ensure timely delivery
of food by the United Nations so that GOAL can get urgent supplies
to the region’s most vulnerable.
GOAL has been working in the DRC since 2002 and is
currently working in two areas in the east of the DRC, in Katanga
and South Kivu, providing nutrition, agriculture, and water and
sanitation assistance to approximately 500,000 internally displaced
persons.
|
