In pictures: Oxfam in D.R. Congo
November 2009
Women in the town of Kirumba queue to collect buckets, soap and other items distributed by Oxfam to help promote good health and hygiene.
In eastern Congo, 900,000 people have fled their homes so far this year, as a result of escalating violence. When people are uprooted and have to live in basic shelters, disease can spread quickly and fatally. Kirumba has seen its population triple after 20,000 people from the surrounding area fled here following new fighting. Oxfam is providing water and sanitation to many of the displaced people in the town, and the families that are now sheltering them.
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
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After years of war and political corruption, education in Congo is in a poor state. One in three children are unable to go to school. Oxfam engineers help communities to construct better facilities – such as this new primary school building in Mbandaka, in Equateur province, which will provide daily education to 240 local children. This is one of seven schools built by Oxfam in the province during 2009. Nsale Yondongo, the school’s director, says “The children walk an hour each way to come to school. At least now when they get here, they will have a real rooftop and everything that will improve their learning conditions.”
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
Oxfam also funds teachers and provides schools with basic equipment – such as wooden benches for children to sit on. Many schools are so poor that pupils have to sit on the floor or under trees. Without clean running water at school, many children get sick, further disrupting their education. Here, at Diagenda school in the capital city Kinshasa, Oxfam has trained teachers and built latrines and handwashing facilities, to keep the pupils healthy.
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
Oxfam works closely with a variety of Congolese partners – not only to provide emergency assistance such as water and sanitation, but also to try and protect civilians from violence and improve human rights. This man – kept anonymous to protect his identity – ran for his life when his village was burned to the ground, and tells his story to one of our partners.
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
Oxfam installs new water pumps in remote villages across Congo. The pumps are easy to use, and provide clean safe water for drinking, washing, cooking and cleaning. In DRC, women and children usually collect the water. “Before Oxfam built the handpump in our village, we never had enough water for all our daily activities,” says Oripa, a 16-year-old girl displaced with her family in Kasuo, North Kivu. “Every day we had to choose between using the water to cook, to shower or wash our clothes – there was not enough water to do everything.”
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
Parts of eastern Congo are some of the most remote and under-developed regions of the world. Many villages where Oxfam works cannot be reached by road, and staff have to walk miles on foot, over rivers and through jungle, to reach communities. These Oxfam health workers are heading to a small village to provide families there with information on how to prevent diseases prominent in the area, such as malaria and diarrhoea
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
Security is another big problem for humanitarian agencies working in eastern Congo, and Oxfam staff are working in increasingly difficult and dangerous conditions. With so many different militia and military groups, aid vehicles are often targeted. There have been over 100 attacks on aid agencies since the start of 2009, and seven aid workers have been killed in the past two years. Oxfam vehicles here are painted purple to be easily recognised as being for humanitarian use.
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
There is plenty of water in eastern Congo, but much of it is unsafe for people to drink. At this river near Luofo, in North Kivu province, Oxfam public health technicians have set up a new system of pumps and storage tanks. The system treats the dirty river water and makes it clean and safe for the local community to use.
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
Oxfam health workers hold community meetings in towns and villages across eastern Congo. The meetings teach parents how they can help prevent their children getting sick. Grace, an Oxfam health promoter, uses pictures to give villagers tips on how to prevent typhoid – a disease rampant in the area – by keeping chickens out of the house, and keeping utensils clean.
Photo: Francoise Mukuku
The UN has deployed a peacekeeping mission, known as MONUC, to eastern Congo with a mandate to protect civilians from violence. However, in 2009 MONUC has focused in large part on supporting a Congolese army offensive against a militia known as the FDLR. The offensive has greatly increased suffering for civilians in North and South Kivu – with over 1,000 people killed, 7,000 women and girls raped and as many as 900,000 people made homeless since it began. Oxfam is lobbying for the UN to end its support for the offensive.
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Photo: Alun McDonald
