Tag Archives: Kivu

AMA, Health

WHO supports Burundi to deliver lifesaving emergency health assistance

MaraviPost

Geneva, Switzerland, 10 March 2026- /African Media Agency (AMA)/- Burundi is facing a growing humanitarian emergency as thousands of people fleeing violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to cross the border, placing increasing strain on health services and infrastructure in refugee-hosting communities.

Since late 2025, more than 100 000 people have arrived in Burundi, most of them women and children, escaping armed violence in South Kivu. Settled in camps, they require urgent assistance including health, food, shelter, safe water and sanitation as well as protection.

The situation is unfolding alongside other challenges affecting the country. Burundi continues to face food insecurity, climate-related displacement caused by floods and landslides, and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and mpox. Health facilities in affected districts are reporting rising consultations as they work to provide care for both displaced families and local communities.

“Burundi’s solidarity in hosting people fleeing crisis across the border is remarkable,” said Dr Marie Roseline Darnycka Belizaire, Emergencies Director at the World Health Organization (WHO)Regional Office for Africa. “WHO is supporting national authorities to expand health services and strengthen preparedness efforts.”

During a recent visit to Burundi, WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr Mohamed Janabi met with the national authorities and partners to review the situation and reinforce support for the country’s health response.

At the Busuma refugee site, which hosts more than 75 000 refugees living in extremely difficult conditions, Dr Janabi witnessed firsthand the scale of humanitarian needs and the efforts underway to provide displaced families with essential health services.

“No family should be left without access to health care simply because they have been forced to flee their homes,” said Dr Janabi. “WHO remains committed to supporting Burundi to deliver lifesaving health services to refugees and host communities while strengthening preparedness for future health threats.”

To support the refugees and host communities, WHO has established a health post at the site and deployed mobile clinic services. Since its establishment, the facility has provided more than 16 000curative consultations, supported 78 safe deliveries, and vaccinated over 28 000 children against measles. Health teams have also provided mental health and psychosocial care and identified several cases of malnutrition, ensuring patients are referred for appropriate treatment.

These services are helping ensure that families who have fled violence receive timely care, including treatment for common illnesses, maternal health services, vaccination and mental health support.

WHO is also working closely with the Government of Burundi and partners to strengthen disease surveillance, vaccination and community engagement in areas affected by displacement and overcrowding.

During the visit, Dr Janabi met with His Excellency President Evariste Ndayishimiye, the President and expressed gratitude for the country’s generosity in hosting refugees and pledged solidarity with the government to address the health and humanitarian challenges.

Dr Janabi also met with the First Lady of Burundi, Her Excellency Angeline Ndayishimiye, to discuss collaboration between the Office of the First Lady and WHO on advancing national health priorities, particularly maternal and child health.

In discussion with the Minister of Public Health, Dr Lydwine Baradahana, Dr Janabi and his team committed to supporting the government to strengthen health services and responding to emergencies. WHO handed over 24 tonnes of essential medicines to support the cholera response, as well as three vehicles to reinforce emergency health response and improve service delivery in the affected areas.

As Burundi works to address the growing humanitarian and health needs, WHO and its partners remain committed to supporting the efforts to expand access to essential health services, prevent disease outbreaks and strengthen the resilience of the national health system.

Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of World Health Organisation.

The post WHO supports Burundi to deliver lifesaving emergency health assistance appeared first on African Media Agency.

Lifestyle

DRC: M23 rebels expel civilians to Rwanda

Maravi Post Reporter

Thousands of people believed to be illegals from Rwanda were expelled by the M23 from the key major town of Goma on Saturday.

On Monday, the M23 spokesperson, Willy Ngoma, presented 181 individuals claiming they were Rwandan subjects who were illegally in Goma.

Also presented were thousands of women and children believed to be family members of the culprits. According to witnesses, they were carried in trucks and their documents, issued by the Congolese authorities, were burned to ashes. The group claimed that the documents were bogus.

The majority of the families are from the Karenga region, located in North Kivu, which had been under the control of the  Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Both Kigalia and M23 accuse the Congo government of supporting the FDLR, which has also committed numerous atrocities in the region.

According to some sources, most families lived in a displacement camp in Sake, a few kilometers from Goma.

Some 360 people were repatriated on Saturday into Rwanda, according to Eujin Byun, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR].

For decades, mineral-rich eastern Congo has been ripped apart by violence from government forces and different armed groups, including the Rwanda-backed M23, whose recent resurgence has escalated the conflict and worsened an already acute humanitarian crisis.

The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts.

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/15/18/84/06/ED_PYR_1518846_20250518062252.mp4
Lifestyle

Congo’s rebel-held coltan mines continue to pump ore for world’s tech

Maravi Post Reporter

Deep in the green hills of Masisi territory in North Kivu province, the artisanal mining site at Rubaya hums with the sound of generators as piles of white dust dot the landscape.

Thousands of workers extract, by hand, strategic minerals such as coltan, cassiterite, and manganese—essential for the production of phones, batteries, and other modern technologies.

Eastern Congo has been in and out of crisis for decades with more than 100 armed groups, most of which are vying for territory in the mining region near the border with Rwanda.

The conflict has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian disasters with more than 7 million people displaced, including 100,000 who fled homes this year.

The Rubaya mine and surrounding area are under the control of the M23 armed group.

Mines like these have been at heart of discussions around M23’s takeover of part of eastern Congo, with the Congolese government alleging they want control of the minerals and are smuggling them illegally to Rwanda.

For the men working in Rubaya’s mines, little has changed, despite what some of them say are easier working conditions under the rebels.

Jean Baptiste Bigirimana has been working in the mines for seven years.

“I get 40 dollars a month, but that’s not enough. Children need clothes, education, and food. When I divide up the money to see how I will take care of the children, I realize it’s not enough,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know where the minerals he mines go once they leave Rubaya.

At times the mines were also under control of the Wazalendo, a militia allied with the Congolese army.

Alexis Twagira said he feels some things have improved under M23.

“I’ve been working in this mine for 13 years, and I’ve worked here under the Wazalendo. When they were here, they would harass us, sometimes taking our minerals and asking for money,” he said.

In April, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw the signing by Congo and Rwanda of a pledge to work toward peace in the region that would ease U.S. access to minerals in eastern Congo.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi sought out a deal with the Trump administration that could offer the U.S. better access to his country’s resources in exchange for U.S. help calming hostilities.

Congo and Rwanda hope the involvement of the United States — and the incentive of major investment if there’s enough security for U.S. companies to work safely in east Congo — will calm the fighting and militia violence that have defied peacekeeping and negotiation since the mid-1990s.

Bahati Moïse is a trader who resells the coltan that leaves Rubaya’s mines.

He said he just hopes that mine workers can be valued as much as the minerals they work so hard to extract.

“The whole country, the whole world knows that phones are made from the coltan that comes here, but look at the life we live,” he said.

“We can’t continue like this.”

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/14/84/94/04/ED_PYR_1484944_20250514110425.mp4
Lifestyle

DR Congo: Kabila’s party says resuming work in defiance of ban

Maravi Post Reporter

Former Congolese President Joseph Kabila’s party said Tuesday it was resuming activities following a suspension last month by the interior ministry.

The government order freezing the activities of the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) has not been lifted. But the party’s lawyers argue that without a court order, the suspension automatically expires after 15 days.

An Interior ministry statement justifying the ban on the PPRD accused Kabila of of ‘overt’ activism.

It said the 53-year-old had been reluctant to condemn M23, the rebel group controlling North and South Kivu provinces.

Kinshasa has accused Kabila, in self-imposed exile since 2023, of supporting armed rebellion in the country’s east.

In April, Kabila who ruled Congo until 2019 made a low key return to the country.

He arrived in the rebel-held city of Goma through Rwanda. Kabila has not been seen in public since.

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/14/33/57/09/ED_PYR_1433579_20250508084704.mp4
Lifestyle

Dr. Mukwege denounces use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in DRC

Maravi Post Reporter

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege denounced on Wednesday the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, the Congolese doctor described what he called a “dramatic situation” in the Congo’s North Kivu region.

“We had 10,000 cases of sexual violence, with 30 to 35 percent are rapes against children. There is a trend towards unacceptable violence, but to attack children, that is going beyond any possible red lines that you could imagine,” said Mukwege.

Mukwege founded the Panzi Hospital in the eastern Congo city of Bukavu, and for over 20 years has treated countless women who were raped amid fighting between armed groups seeking control of some the central African nation’s vast mineral wealth.

He was in Strasbourg to meet with members of the European Parliament and urge them to help negotiations and peace talks with rebel groups.

Mukwege shared the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize with activist Nadia Murad, who was kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery by Islamic State militants in 2014 along with an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women.

Additional sources • AP

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/14/25/17/06/ED_PYR_1425176_20250507130454.mp4
Lifestyle

DRC: M23 rebels seize strategic town despite peace talks

Maravi Post Reporter

Despite ongoing peace talks in Doha, M23 militants and their allies fighting Democratic Republic of Congo government forces in the east of the country have seized the strategic town of Lunyasenge.

It is being reported that the battle in the town on the western shore of Lake Edward left at least 17 people dead, including 7 Congolese soldiers.

The insurgents have taken control of much of the eastern part of the country since January.

Both sides recently called for a ceasefire, but clashes have continued in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri, with the M23 seizing an increasing number of villages.

A DRC army spokesperson has described the recent attack as a “flagrant violation” of the truce, saying the military reserves the right to respond if the threat persists.

Delegations from both the rebel coalition and the government are currently in the Qatari capital trying to reach an agreement to end the fighting.

Millions of people have been displaced by the ongoing clashes which have worsened an already dire humanitarian situation.

Amid fears that the conflict could spread beyond the DRC’s borders, the Doha talks are seen as critical in determining the region’s future.

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/14/03/29/09/ED_PYR_1403299_20250505124449.mp4
Lifestyle

DR Congo seeks to lift former president Kabila’s immunity over alleged war crimes

Maravi Post Reporter

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has taken a historic step by officially requesting the removal of parliamentary immunity for former President Joseph Kabila, citing serious allegations including war crimes and support for armed rebellion.

Justice Minister Constant Mutamba announced that the Congolese military prosecutor has submitted a formal request to the Senate to lift Kabila’s immunity. As a former head of state, Kabila holds the status of senator for life, which currently protects him from prosecution.

Authorities claim to have evidence implicating Kabila in “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the massacres of civilians and soldiers,” particularly through alleged support for the M23 rebel group. M23 has been active in North Kivu, where its offensives have destabilized the region and displaced millions.

Joseph Kabila ruled the DRC from 2001 to 2019. He left the country in late 2023 and has been residing primarily in South Africa. Recently, he expressed a desire to return to the DRC and contribute to resolving the crisis in the east. He denies all allegations leveled against him.

The timing of this legal move is significant. It coincides with ongoing peace efforts between the DRC and Rwanda—accused of backing M23—under U.S. mediation, with a peace agreement expected by May 2. Meanwhile, the Congolese government has suspended Kabila’s political party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), and threatened to seize assets belonging to him and his associates.

Kabila’s allies view the legal action as politically motivated. Ferdinand Kambere, PPRD’s permanent secretary, accused President Félix Tshisekedi’s administration of trying to block Kabila’s return to the political scene. He further argued that the current leadership bears responsibility for the spiraling conflict in the east.

This political escalation comes amid worsening violence in eastern DRC, where clashes between government forces and M23 rebels have left around 3,000 people dead and nearly 7 million displaced since the beginning of 2025.

If the Senate approves the request, it could pave the way for an unprecedented trial of a former Congolese head of state on charges of war crimes, potentially marking a turning point in the country’s fight against impunity.

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/13/77/38/02/ED_PYR_1377382_20250501162936.mp4