UN relief official in DR of Congo to visit world's greatest humanitarian crisis

A senior United Nations official charged with coordinating humanitarian assistance arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) capital today on his way to the country's eastern region to visit the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.

Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), is slated to travel east tomorrow to the areas of the DRC bordering Rwanda and Uganda where 3.5 million Congolese have been displaced in fighting.

According to a UN human rights report, the area is the site of many war crimes, including the rape, torture and shooting of thousands of girls and women.

Mr. Egeland will visit several field locations, including Kindu, Bukavu, Goma, Bunia and Baraka. Access to people in need in Kindu and Baraka has recently improved and while there, he will assess how better access translates into better conditions for the civilian population.

In Kinshasa today he met senior government officials and urged them to do more to reduce insecurity, protect civilians and take measures to end human rights violations and impunity for offenders. He also pledged to provide as much humanitarian support to the DRC as possible.

At UN Headquarters in New York, members of the Security Council condemned the recent violence in Ituri and the Kivus, especially the two-hour firefight initiated by DRC militia last week, and expressed concern at the continuing hostilities in the area.

They paid tribute, in a press statement, to the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC), "particularly those of the Ituri brigade."

Outside the Council chamber, Angolan Ambassador Ismael Abraão Gaspar Martins, this month's Council President, told reporters that the forces responsible for the violence, the Union des Patriotes Congolais and the Lendu tribal militia, "met a robust response on the part of MONUC."