Cholera adds to plight in Congo

KIBATI, Congo – Doctors struggled Sunday to contain an outbreak of cholera in a sprawling refugee camp near Congo’s eastern provincial capital of Goma, as renewed fighting ignited fears that patients could scatter and launch an epidemic.

Congolese soldiers and rebels were seen less than 800 meters (yards) apart near Goma, where rebel leader Laurent Nkunda declared a cease-fire on Oct. 29 as his forces reached the edge of the city.

Rebels and soldiers clashed Thursday just north of the Kibati refugee camp, seven miles from Goma, and soldiers who retreated last week were digging in Sunday at a new front line.

About 50,000 refugees have crowded around Kibati, some taken into log cabins by villagers, others living in tents or hastily built beehive-shaped huts. Thousands who sleep out in the open huddled under plastic sheeting Sunday as rain pounded down.

Doctors Without Borders said it treated 13 new cases of cholera in Kibati on Sunday and has seen 45 cases since Friday. The agency’s Dr. Rafaela Gentilini said shortages of water and latrines were making the outbreak “really dangerous.”

Dozens of people have died of cholera in recent weeks elsewhere in eastern Congo. Doctors fear an epidemic north of Goma behind rebel lines, where access has been limited by fighting and rebels have driven tens of thousands of people from camps where outbreaks had been contained.

At the front line near Kibati, soldiers milled around Sunday, collecting pay, smoking marijuana and looking unconcerned about the rebels, who were gathering less than half a mile away. Intermittent gunshots crackled from the direction of government positions.

The fighting in eastern Congo is fueled by ethnic hatred left over from the 1994 slaughter of at least 500,000 Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda.

Nkunda, whose rebels launched an offensive Aug. 28, first said he was fighting to protect minority Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu militants who participated in the genocide before fleeing to Congo.

Now he says he wants to “liberate” all Congo from an allegedly corrupt government. He is seeking direct talks with his former comrade-in-arms, President Joseph Kabila, whose government says it will not negotiate with a war criminal.

The U.N. Children’s Fund says hundreds of children have lost their parents as more than 250,000 refugees have been forced from their homes in the last 10 weeks.