DRC: in North Kivu, MSF attempts to reach those trapped in the conflict

The sun beats down on a corrugated iron shelter that serves as Bukama health centre's waiting room. It is December 2007, a Friday, and therefore market day. The health centre, where MSF conducts regular clinics, is crowded. "Just a few days ago, this health centre was pillaged by armed men; there was almost nobody left here," says MSF nurse Angelina Palmer. "Thanks to the bravery of Congolese health staff who agreed to come back to work here, we have been able to treat a huge number of patients."

Bukama is a small community in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Today, the MSF medical team will carry out around a hundred consultations there, only a few kilometres from the blurred frontline where various armed groups are manoeuvring.

Among the patients are children, women, and elders. Here, men of fighting age are often demanded at the front. Over the last few months in North Kivu, the resumption of hostilities has forced hundreds of thousands of people into flight. Violence, extortion, malnutrition, and outbreaks of disease: the people that MSF is here to help, both local and displaced, are becoming increasingly at risk as each day goes by.

In the course of regular visits to remote clinics and in the St Benoit Hospital in Kitchanga where MSF is supporting the regular staff, 3,300 patients were treated in December 2007, mainly for malaria, diarrhoea, and respiratory infections. The team has treated 47 children suffering from acute malnutrition, while measles cases remain frequent. This week in Kitchanga, MSF will start providing surgical operations.

Since March 2007 MSF has been providing a regular mobile clinic in four communities in the Mweso health zone - Kashuga, Kalembe, and Jardin Théicole de Ngeri as well as Bukama. However, insecurity caused by the presence of various armed groups in this area has meant that over the past few weeks MSF has only been able to go to Bukama. The other areas, located further north, have remained out of reach.

During the second week of January, thanks to discussions with the various parties to the conflict, MSF was able to return to the Kashuga and Kalembe health centres to re-supply with drugs. Unfortunately, and for the second time in a few months, Kashuga health centre had been pillaged.

"Our mobile clinics are the only way for many people to receive medical care," explains Angelina Palmer. "We know that further north, people are dying of diseases that are easily treatable, but we have not been able to reach them for several weeks. We first managed to return only a few days ago, and we have to constantly re-evaluate security conditions. These people are regularly trapped in a conflict that has lasted for years and to which they cannot see an end."

In North Kivu, MSF runs medical and humanitarian programmes on both side of the frontline, in the districts of Goma, Rutshuru, Nyanzale, Masisi, Kitchanga, Mweso, and Kilolirwe. MSF has worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 1981.