Newsgroup: it.cultura.religioni.cristiani
Titolo: la grande civilta' africana

Children Suffer Torture, Rape And Cruelty, NGOs Report
 
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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks 
June 18, 2003 
Posted to the web June 18, 2003 
Nairobi 
Children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have suffered
systematic torture and cruelty during the country's five-year war,
according to a new report by a consortium of NGOs.
Foreign and domestic governments as well as armed groups have
committed gross violations against children, including assault, rape,
abduction, sexual torture, forced displacement, underage recruitment
into armed forces and forced participation in the illegal
exploitation of natural resources.
"The Impact of Conflict on Children in the Democratic Republic of
Congo", a 36-page report released on Monday by the Watchlist on
Children and Armed Conflict to coincide with the end of a UN Security
Council mission to the country and the Day of the African Child,
documents the grim reality of the DRC.
Among the most striking statistics: over 12 percent of children do
not reach their first birthday; three million children are without
access to education; malnutrition rates exceed 40 percent in some
areas; 400,000 children have been displaced from their homes; tens of
thousands of children have been recruited as child soldiers; and
gender-based violence, including rape of girls, is widespread.
The ongoing conflict in the country has claimed an estimated 3.3
million lives since 1998, mostly women, children and elderly,
according to a report by the International Rescue Committee, titled
"Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Results from a
Nationwide Survey, Conducted September to November 2002, reported
April 2003".
In Ituri District in the northeast, according to the Watchlist
report, children had been forced to witness parents and grandparents
being hacked to death; young girls raped in front of their families;
children forced to kill their close relatives; children and other
hospital patients dragged from their beds and killed; children,
including infants, dying after being locked up without food or water;
and children killed, some shot in the back, in massacres along with
hundreds of other civilians.
Speaking to the media for the launch of the report, Anne Edgerton of
Refugees International said that the situation in the DRC was "the
largest humanitarian crisis on the planet right now with the smallest
amount of response".
She added: "If somehow the response can be much more appropriate to
the actual crisis, it could be ended. It's not so large that it could
not be done."
The report recommends that all parties to the conflict, the UN
Security Council, and to the UN Mission in the DRC take "urgent
action" to address the situation in eastern DRC.
The Watchlist is a network of local, regional and international NGOs
working to protect the security and rights of children in armed
conflicts.
[For the complete report, go to:
http://www.watchlist.org/reports/dr_congo.report.pdf
]
--------------------------------
se un gruppo di cristiani intende operare in politica,
NON fa una buona politica< se favorisce gli interessi
della CC, ma solo SE riesce a realizzare una societa' 
piu' giusta, a garantire a ciascuno dignita' e liberta'.
Severino Dianich: Come vivere e capire la CC- pag.89

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks 
June 18, 2003 
Posted to the web June 18, 2003 
Nairobi 
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) launched an appeal on Wednesday for
US $38 million to provide food for approximately 500,000 war-affected
people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
In a statement, WFP said it required 46,000 mt of food for six months
to feed 483,000 people "who are the most vulnerable of those caught
up in the violence".
Eastern DRC, specifically Bunia, the main town of Ituri District, has
been embroiled in violence since 7 May when Ugandan soldiers withdrew
from the town.
WFP said that up to 300,000 people were reported to have been
displaced by the latest clashes in Bunia, and that 60,000 had arrived
in Beni, about 150 km south of Bunia.
WFP said armed conflict in the country in the past five years had
been catastrophic for civilians in the region.
"People have been subject to acts of extreme brutality and human
rights violations at the hands of various militia groups, with
torture, lootings, rape and random killings a feature of daily life,"
the agency reported. "Millions of people have been displaced, leaving
behind all their belongings; in many areas agricultural production
has been brought to a standstill."
WFP quoted a recent survey conducted by the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation, which said that at least 64 percent of the population
in eastern DRC had suffered from food shortages.
"Other surveys indicate that the levels of global malnutrition among
children under the age of five vary between 15 and 30 percent, levels
well above what is considered an emergency," WFP said.
It added that its staff had visited a local hospital in Walungu,
South Kivu, and found children showing symptoms of severe
malnutrition.
"We saw wards filled with emaciated babies and young children with
distended stomachs, stick-like limbs and whose hair had turned
yellow," Felix Bamezon, WFP's country director in the DRC, said.
"These children are slowly dying of starvation. We cannot simply
stand by and let it happen," he said.
The WFP emergency operation will target the new arrivals in Beni. The
agency said it was already feeding 1.4 million people across country.
"Our funding situation simply does not allow us to assist the entire
population," Bamezon said. "We have no alternative but to concentrate
on the most vulnerable."
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UNICEF Condemns Atrocities Against Women And Children
 
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African Church Information Service 
June 16, 2003 
Posted to the web June 17, 2003 
Vincent Okungu
Kinshasa/Nairobi 
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has raised alarm over
violence meted against women and children in the ongoing conflict in
Ituri Province, east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The UN body is particularly worried about recent reports that
thousands of women and girls were being brutally attacked, raped,
mutilated and killed in the war-torn province, and has called upon
all actors to the conflict to put an end to the atrocities. "These
attacks against innocent civilians are committed with impunity," said
UNICEF Executive Director, Carol Bellamy in a statement released June
6.
"Those individuals and groups who are committing these horrific
crimes must never forget they are accountable under international
law. When the time comes, the world must hold them accountable,"
Bellamy warned.
An estimated 20,000 women and an equal number of children have been
displaced by the recent outbreak of fighting, mainly between the Hema
and Lendu militia groups.
The UN agency is concerned that various armed groups recently
recruited thousands of children, some younger than 10 years old. Many
of these children, believed to comprise a third of the 30,000
fighters, have been forced to take part in horrific violence, while
countless others have been killed or maimed in combat.
"The recruitment of child soldiers in this conflict is simply
unacceptable," Bellamy stated. "These children are protected under
international and Congolese law and must be immediately demobilised,"
she added.
While commending the UN Security Council for a speedy decision to
deploy a multi-national force to stem violence against civilians,
Bellamy calls upon all combatants and governmental actors to halt all
forms of attack against civilians; cease recruitment of children and
immediately begin the demobilisation process of all child soldiers,
and guarantee the security of civilian populations in the areas under
their control.
In addition, UNICEF appeals to the combatants to allow humanitarian
actors full, safe and unhindered access to all affected populations
and guarantee their security in the areas under their control.
The DRC is a mineral rich country in central Africa, and has been in
a vicious civil war since about six years ago, when Mobutu Sese Seko
was overthrown from power by Laurent Kabila.
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UN Confirms 70 Killed in Ituri Village
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks 
June 16, 2003 
Posted to the web June 16, 2003 
Kampala 
The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC)
confirmed on Monday that Lendu militiamen had killed 70 people in the
eastern Congolese village of Nkora, near Mahagi town, Ituri District,
close to the Ugandan border.
"I have reliable reports of the massacre from an independent source,"
Col Pieter Harmse, MONUC's spokesperson in Uganda, told IRIN in
Kampala. "Basically, the Lendu fighters attacked the village itself,
chopping up and killing pretty much all civilians - I don't know if
they were all Hema or what ethnic group they were."
He said the information had come from a Congolese farmer in the
village, not from any member of armed belligerents in Ituri's war.
The attack was the second by Lendu militiamen reported in less than
three weeks. At the end of May, the Hema-dominated Parti pour l'unite
et la sauvegarde de l'integrite du Congo (PUSIC), led by chief Kawa
Panga Mandro, distributed photographs of some 250-300 dead unarmed
civilians in the predominantly Hema town of Tchomia, on the shores of
Lake Albert, which divides southern Ituri from neighbouring Uganda.
Meanwhile, Bunia town was reported to be calm after an armed Lendu
gang attacked French troops of a multinational force who were moving
in convoy about six kilometres from the town centre on Saturday.
"The situation is now under control again," Capt Frederick Solano,
the French army spokesperson, told IRIN. "There was a fight between
our troops and the Lendus. We opened fire, as we are mandated to do,
to protect ourselves and repel the gunmen."
He said no injuries occurred on the French side and that he did not
know of casualties among the attackers.
Solano said that the deployment of the multinational peace
enforcement troops in Bunia was progressing as planned, despite of
the skirmish. He said about 1,200 troops were mobilised between
Entebbe and Bunia and that 600 of them were already in Bunia by early
Monday.
"We also have two more French 'Gazelle' attack helicopters coming in
today, to increase our firepower," he said.
At a news conference at Entebbe airport on Sunday, a UN Security
Council team that had just ended its six-nation tour of Africa
implored the countries in the Great Lakes region - particularly
Uganda and Rwanda - to help restrain the various warring parties in
eastern Congo's conflicts.
The delegation's leader, French Permanent Representative to the UN
Secretary Council Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, told Ugandan President
Yoweri Museveni that states in Africa's Great Lakes region needed to
play their part in preventing further fighting in Ituri.
[For related report, go to
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34764
]
Uganda and Rwanda armed and trained both Lendu and Hema fighters in
1999 when they needed them to fight in their opposing proxy rebel
factions, splintered from the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la
democratie, which had tried to unseat Congo's late President
Laurent-Desire Kabila.
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vi ho offerto solo qualc<he news di un solo gg di una sola nazione
africana: il Congo. Buona lettura.
pit bum


 pit bum
quanto sei ridicolo.
y.



THE Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels on Tuesday night attacked
Adjumani Catholic Parish, abducting 15 children from Redeemer
Orphanage Centre.
The parish priest, the Rev. Father John Bosco, said the rebels, who
attacked the centre at 11:30pm, did not fire any shot. "I managed to
escape as they tried to break the door into the radio room. They
failed and moved to the Sisters' (nuns) quarters where they also
failed to enter. They continued to Redeemer Orphanage, housing 34
Sudanese orphans," he said.
The bishop of Arua Diocese, Frederick Dandrua, who was on a pastoral
visit to the parish, was in the room. He said the rebels abducted
nine girls and six boys including a seven-year-old. They stole a
radio cassette, mobile phone, rosaries, a chalice, robes, hosts and
some wine.
"They took the children captive. Twelve were Sudanese," an army
spokesman, Lt. Paddy Ankunda, said from Gulu.
"Our forces are on pursuit," he added. The last time the rebels
attacked Adjumani was in 1991 when three of them were killed.
Meanwhile, the rebels yesterday stormed Atiak Police Post, about 44
miles on the Gulu-Juba road.
Ankunda said the rebels grabbed a Police radio call communication
system and looted shops near Atiak Police post. They were, however,
repulsed by the UPDF.
Travellers on a Gateway bus to Gulu town said the rebels emerged from
the Atiak-Moyo road.
Travellers on a Gateway bus said the rebels came from Atiak-Moyo road
in single file. The rebels last year stormed a government post in
Patongo and stole communication equipment.
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 ha scritto nel
oggi pure patetico.

oggi pure patetico.
pochi hanno la capacita' di cambiar aspetto ogni giorno!!
domani come saro'??


 domani come saro'??
peri-patetico?
Meleyak
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 domani come saro'??
innovativo, parla un po' dei terroni