Congo

MSF is assisting university hospital teams treating those injured in an explosion in the city of Brazzaville.

The health situation for more than 100,000 refugees from the DRC gathered on the Republic of Congo side of the Ubangi River has not improved, and could worsen.

Tens of thousands of refugee families who fled fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo are now living on the banks of the Ubangi River, enduring shortages of food, shelter and healthcare.

A recent upsurge of violence, sparked by inter-community conflicts in Equateur Province in the northwest of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has forced 74,000 people to flee their homes. Many have headed for the country’s interior, while others have taken refuge across the border, in the Republic of the Congo, where their health remains in peril.

Approximately 24,000 refugees recently arrived in northern Republic of Congo. They are fleeing serious violence related to conflict in areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is the only organization providing assistance and people are in critical need of food and relief materials from other aid organizations.

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.