Congo Brazzaville

Atlanta, November 15, 2006 — Preliminary results from a study conducted by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) show that significantly shorter and simplified treatment of African sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis — HAT) could be possible in the near future. Announcing the study today at the 55th annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Atlanta, the organization stressed that measures must be undertaken to ensure that this treatment can be used as soon as possible at country level, and that older, toxic treatments are phased out."

Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, January 24, 2006 - Following a number of security incidents affecting its staff, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has decided to temporarily withdraw its teams from most of the southeastern Pool region of the Republic of Congo, the organization has announced. As a result, all of MSF's activities in the districts of Kindamba, Mindouli, and Vindza were stopped on January 20. The organization's activities in the Pool district of Kinkala will continue.

For the past 11 months, fighting between the government army or militias and rebel militias have resumed in Brazzaville, the capital of the Congo Republic. This fighting has generated massive and blind atrocities against civilian populations. The resulting widespread violence perpetrated by the parties at war affects the entire civilian population. Arbitrary executions, mutilations, rapes, and disappearances illustrate the arbitrary character of the violence perpetrated against the civilians.