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UN mission spends $700,000 for volcano relief effort in DR of Congo

UN mission spends $700,000 for volcano relief effort in DR of Congo

The United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) has provided over $700,000 worth of support to the relief effort following the eruption of a volcano in the country earlier this month, the head of MONUC said today.

The Mission has used its air and land transport assets to help relief aid and international experts to reach those affected by lava flows from Mount Nyiragongo, which erupted on 17 January, according to Amos Namanga Ngongi, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Briefing reporters in Kinshasa, Mr. Ngongi said the mission had dispatched four cargo planes in order to bring emergency aid to Goma through Kigali and Bukavu. The relief included 24 tonnes of humanitarian aid provided by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and 17 tonnes collected by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The UN estimates that about a quarter of a million people from Goma are homeless as a result of devastation wreaked by the volcano, while 40 per cent of all health centres and 70 per cent of all schools in the area have been destroyed by lava flows.