Mount Nyamulagira

Almost a year ago, a good friend and I climbed Mount Nyiragongo, an active volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the time, there seemed no danger of the volcano exploding; now, however, it seems as though the situation has changed.

DR Congo volcano 'may soon erupt'
by: BBC

Scientists in the Democratic Republic of Congo have recorded significant increased volcanic activity around Goma in the east of the country. Half of the city was destroyed in 2002 after the nearest of two volcanoes, Mount Nyiragongo, erupted.

Now Mount Nyamulagira, which lies 25km (16 miles) from Goma, may soon erupt.

Scientist Dieudonne Wafula told the BBC if it did erupt, there would not be an immediate threat to Goma, but some key rural roads could be cut off.

The BBC's Mark Doyle says the volcanoes loom over Goma, spewing smoke and steam even when they are not considered to be an immediate threat.

By day, the air in the city, the de facto capital of eastern DR Congo, is thick with volcanic dust, he says. By night, residents can often see the red glow of burning lava trickling out of the summit of the nearest volcano, Mount Nyiragongo.

Mr Wafula, who heads Goma's Volcano Observatory, said significantly increased temperatures had been recorded around Mount Nyiragongo recently and a larger than usual cloud of volcanic dust was being thrown into the skies. However, he said, it was Mount Nyamulagira that was likely to erupt.

The representative of the United Nations refugee agency in Goma, which closely monitors population movements, said he was not aware of any panic in the region.

A resident of Goma told the BBC said people were talking about the volcanoes and that they had noticed a rise in temperature in recent days, but that otherwise the situation inside Goma was normal.

Top ten humanitarian crises

As I've been reading more about the current situation in the Gaza Strip, I couldn't help but think about some of the other places I've visited in the past six months, namely Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that have fallen into unbelievable humanitarian crises shortly after my visit. I was curious about which places would be considered the worst humanitarian crises and found out that MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders) publishes a list of the top ten worst humanitarian crises each year. This year's list includes Somalia, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, childhood malnutrition, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sudan, Iraq and co-infection with HIV and tuberculosis. Stories, photos, maps and videos on each of these crises can be found here.

Fighting continues in the DRC

The U.S. election day and election results may have erased the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo from news headlines for a few days, but don't let that make you forget. Gunshots and explosions from militia fighting have begun again, despite the ceasefire; aid workers have been forced to withdraw from the area; thousands of refugees are on the run yet again; and child soldiers are being recruited to fight on the front lines.

Continued crisis in DRC

Rumors from the Congo are that even though a ceasefire has been declared, it has only led to an increase in looting, pillaging, raping and civilian killings in Goma as the catastrophe there worsens. Below is an updated article from the BBC.

'Human catastrophe' grips Congo
BBC News, 31 October 2008

Fierce fighting between government and rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, the Red Cross says.

Diplomatic efforts are under way to end the crisis, which has threatened to spill over into neighbouring Rwanda.

A tense ceasefire is holding in the eastern city of Goma, where tens of thousands fled as rebels advanced.

But rebel leader Gen Laurent Nkunda has threatened to take the city unless UN peacekeepers guarantee the ceasefire.

Killings and rapes have been reported in Goma and aid has not been reaching the displaced.

Oxfam and other leading international aid agencies have suspended operations in the city, where a main hospital as well as numerous businesses and homes have been looted.

The Red Cross's Michael Khambatta told the BBC the priority now was providing the vast numbers of civilians forced from their homes with food, medical aid, shelter and some sort of security.

After several days of fighting, Gen Nkunda declared the ceasefire on late on Wednesday, and his Tutsi forces are positioned some nine miles (15km) from Goma - the provincial capital of North Kivu.

He said he was opening a "humanitarian corridor" so aid could reach the thousands of people trapped between his forces and UN soldiers backing up government troops in the city.

Much of the looting has been blamed on retreating Congolese troops.

The UN is considering redeploying some of its 17,000-strong force in DR Congo - the world's largest - to bolster around 5,000 peacekeepers in the city.

As the tense ceasefire held early on Friday, a multi-pronged diplomatic effort was under way to resolve the crisis.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon sent envoys to both DR Congo and Rwanda as each accused the other of launching cross-border incursions.

The African Union is to hold crisis talks on Friday and EU efforts have been ongoing to bring Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Congolese President Joseph Kabila together.

The EU is also to discuss sending troops to the area to aid the humanitarian effort.

Meanwhile, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer has held talks with Mr Kabila in DR Congo's capital, Kinshasa.

Many in DR Congo say Rwanda supports Gen Nkunda's forces - something Rwanda denies.

In the past two months, more than 200,000 people have been driven from their homes across eastern DR Congo.

While thousands have sought refuge in Goma, many thousands more have fled into the forests, where the militias cannot find them, and the aid agencies cannot help them.

Gen Nkunda has told the BBC his goal was to protect the Tutsi community from attack by Rwandan Hutu rebels, some of whom are accused of taking part in the country's 1994 genocide.

Correspondents say a race for the area's mineral wealth is fuelling the conflict as much as ethnic enmities.

There are growing concerns for the welfare of 39 wildlife rangers who were forced to flee into dense forest after their headquarters in eastern DR Congo were stormed by rebels.

Serious trouble in DRC

Comparisons between the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the current situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo have begun. Over the last week, the situation around Goma, which has been a humanitarian crisis for years, has escalated significantly, and it is continuing to worsen by the day, if not the hour. A search for "Congo" on Google News will find numerous articles about the situation. One from the New York Times found here gives background; below is another from the British newspaper, The Independent, that is even more disturbing.

Ominous echoes of genocide
The Independent, Thursday, 30 October 2008

We have been here before. There is a disturbing déjà vu to the reports of thousands of refugees on the move with their mattresses and cooking pots in the border area between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This latest outbreak of fighting follows a familiar pattern, for it has its roots in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in which a minority of Hutus massacred 500,000 Tutsi in Rwanda under a Hutu-dominated military government. When that regime was ousted by a Tutsi force, two million Hutus, fearing reprisals, fled into eastern Congo, where large numbers remain. The area has, in the years since, remained a powder keg in which the two ethnic groups have co-existed uneasily, with frequent outbursts of violence. What makes all this worse is that the Rwandan government gives covert support to Tutsi militias which are in open revolt against the Congolese government. Conversely, the DRC government gives succour to the Hutu militias that oppose them. The two capitals deny this, but the truth is plain enough in an area which is rich in gold, coltan and other minerals.

The Congo, which is as big as Europe, is home to the world's largest peacekeeping force of 17,000 United Nations troops. There have been calls, by the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo and within the UN, for more troops to be sent. That is not the answer in a country which once absorbed armies from Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan and Chad to no avail in a conflict which has cost five times as many lives as the Rwandan genocide. The UN troops are often ineffectual, occasionally finding themselves stoned by locals frustrated by their ineffectiveness against the militias.

The UN Secretary General has sent envoys to the presidents of both the DRC and Rwanda. What they need to press for is round-table talks which involve not just both governments but also both rebel militia forces, something the DRC has until now opposed.

The international community, and most particularly the African Union, needs to push for face-to-face talks between the four parties. It failed to act early enough in 1994, and it must not make the same mistake again.

Charcoal trail

While much of the hike up Nyiragongo is through dense forest, a lot of it passes through areas that have been stripped of the huge, magnificent trees that cover the rest of the park. They call this the Charcoal Trail. I found an article that explains a bit more and have pasted it below. There was also an entire issue of National Geographic magazine in July 2008 that was dedicated to the associations between charcoal, the mountain gorillas, the ongoing guerilla war, Virungas National Park and Nyiragongo. The online version of the magazine can be found here.
Charcoal, Corruption and the DRC's Gorillas
by: Leah Hazard

It was about this time last year when four gorillas were murdered in cold blood in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A photo of the 530-pound Senkwekwe, head of the massacred gorilla family, being carried to burial by Congolese villagers, ignited international outrage and garnered the public’s attention, if only for a moment.

Almost a year later, National Geographic has published a magnificent piece examining the gorilla murders in the Virunga National Park. Poachers were quickly dismissed as suspects due to the intact remains of the animals, leaving soldiers from the Congolese military or two other rebel factions as the likely culprits. Soldiers on all sides of the conflict have wreaked havoc on local communities, killing indiscriminately and raping women, including children as young as three years old. Despite such acts, soldiers insist they are under strict instructions not to harm the gorillas.

So who — or what — explains the murders?

"Follow the trail of charcoal," Emmanuel de Merode had said at the WildlifeDirect office. "Charcoal is the biggest threat to the park."

Charcoal, as we discover over the next few days, is the main source of energy, and evil, in North Kivu. Charcoal is used by 98 percent of the households for cooking, boiling water to make it potable, and also for heat. In the city of Goma, a constant pall of charcoal smoke smudges out the sun and makes the rough streets, rumpled with hardened lava from the 2002 eruption of Nyiragongo, appear to be pathways to hell.

Hardwood charcoal is the economic prize in the DRC and it comes from old growth hard wood trees found within Virunga National Park — home to half the world's population of mountain gorillas.

A sack of charcoal sells for $25 on average. Doing the math De Merode estimates that in 2006, when gorilla tourism brought in less than $300,000, the Virunga charcoal industry was worth more than $30 million.

It is estimated that at the rate that charcoal is harvested from the park, the entire southern portion of the park will be gone in ten years. An area considered to be perhaps the most biologically diverse and best of its kind, may soon vanish.

Aware of these facts, and the local implications, neighboring Rwanda has banished the internal production of charcoal. However, this approach does nothing to mitigate Rwanda's own internal demand for the product. They just buy it from the Congolese.

But what does this have to do with the death of four gorillas in July 2007?

Writer Mark Jenkins met with Paulin Ngobobo, chief warden of the Virunga National Park, to hear his story. When Ngobobo worked for the National Parks he quickly realized that all sides were profiting from the charcoal trade, from the Congolese military to Hutu militias and local chiefs — even the park rangers. In a struggle for conservation of the gorilla's home, he realized that the charcoal trade had to be stopped in its tracks.

At this point Paulin Ngobobo was detained and beaten, allegedly by men directed by the former chief park warden, Honoré Mashagiro, who was actively involved in the very trade which was destroying the park he was charged with protecting. To discredit Ngobobo's anti-charcoal trade efforts it is alleged that Mashagiro had the gorillas killed and blamed their murders on Ngobobo. Despite Mashagiro's efforts, Ngobobo has been cleared of the accusations and remains free. Mashagiro, on the other hand, has been imprisoned in Goma and awaits trial for the killings of the Virunga mountain gorillas.

The story of the DRC's illegal charcoal trade is a difficult one. Who is to blame? A culture of corruption which ensures that park rangers and soldiers will smuggle charcoal to supplement a non-existent salary? Citizens of Goma and neighboring Rwanda who demand the charcoal for cooking?

Nyiragongo volcano

After crossing the border and driving through Goma, we headed toward Mount Nyiragongo,one of the only active volcanoes in the world that you can climb. It is over 3,700 meters above sea level and the crater 250 meters deep and two kilometers wide.
The hike up and down Nyiragongo takes two days. The first day is about six hours of hiking across lava rocks that are left from the 2002 eruption of the volcano.
When we were about halfway up the volcano, we turned around and realized we had begun our hike by climbing a smaller, inactive volcano right next to Nyiragongo.The hike is tough, but the view from the top makes it absolutely worth the effort. We arrived at the rim of the crater around five o'clock in the afternoon and had a perfectly clear view of the lava lake within the volcano's crater. Our guide was as amazed by the view as we were - he said it was the clearest he'd seen the crater in fifteen years. We sat just on the edge of the rim for the next several hours, amazed by the bubbling lava below.
While we watched the lava, our porters had set up camp, just a few meters away from the rim of the volcano on a small ledge. When we were frozen from the wind where we were sitting, we walked over to the small camp to sit around the fire and eat some dinner (thank you everyone for the care packages of tuna fish and granola bars!)

Before long, the sun began to set over the crater.
Although the steam adn smoke grew thicker as it got darker, the lava began to glow more and more brightly, and I understood how it could be seen from kilometers and kilometers away.The evening just became more and more amazing when we realized that there was a full moon overhead and, not just a full moon, but a full lunar eclipse.
The next morning we were up early to pack up camp and head down the volcano.
The hike down was much quicker than the hike up but not necessarily much easier. Each step had to be taken cautiously lest we slip in the skree and slide down the side of the volcano. Still, we were back at the base in only three or three and a half hours and not long afterwards were on a bus back to Kigali.

Goma

This weekend I crossed over into the Democratic Republic of Congo for the first time since I've been in Rwanda. The Congolese town of Goma is just across the border from the Rwandan town of Gisenyi. While the two are close enough to perhaps be the very same town, the border between them is divisive enough that it creates two completely separate worlds.

While Gisenyi is considered a holiday town, of sorts, Goma is a disaster area. The guerilla fighting in the area has taken a hiatus for almost two months, but the tension in the air is still thick. It is obvious that life here is much more difficult than in Goma's sister town of Gisenyi.
Almost every single vehicle on the road is labeled and belongs to the United Nations, International Refugee Committee, Red Cross, World Relief, or any of the other dozens of relief organizations in the area. The majority of the residential areas are refugee settlements designed by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). Plastic tarps covered with the letters 'UNHCR' and 'USAID' are everywhere. Tanks armed by UN peace keepers are scattered along the sides of the road. Even the airport is controlled by the UN.
Aside from the obvious involvement of international non-governmental and United Nations organizations in the area, there is further evidence that life is difficult. Volcanic rock and lava from the 2002 eruption of Nyiragongo still covers the streets and many of the fields. Petrol stations are empty so cars are refueled with siphoned petrol sold in water bottles on the side of the road. The boys at the bus station who, anywhere else, would be selling biscuits and juice instead have boxes of emergency food rations. Economic transactions are conducted in U.S. dollars since the strength of the Congolese franc cannot be trusted.
Goma is not in a good state and, unfortunately, there is little to imply that things may improve any time soon.

Trouble in the DRC

Most of the time, I pay little attention to email from the U.S. Embassy, but I received one today that caught my attention:

The U.S. Embassy hereby informs American citizens in Rwanda that all non-essential travel to the province of North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) should be deferred until further notice. The Travel Warning issued by Embassy Kinshasa dated April 24, 2007 remains in effect for the DRC.

According to media reports, as well as information provided by the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) and the U.S. Embassy representative in Goma, the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) stepped up military action against General Laurent Nkunda and his forces, using helicopter gunships and heavy artillery in the area of Mushake on December 4. Nkunda loyalists are moving from Kabati and Kilolirwe towards Kichanda and further north. Movements of forces on both sides, build-up of government troops, and continued clashes are expected. Numerous civilians are fleeing the region."