Update on the Democratic Republic of The Congo
As many of you know Wollundry has supported my sister Barbara’s work in the DRC over many years and indeed Doug Sutton headed our major district initiative for the DRC last year.
I was speaking at length with Barbara yesterday on the report of a doctor being murdered by terrorists in the DRC when he was administering anti Ebola injections. UN troops accompany such parties but are sometimes powerless to intervene!
She mentioned that she had received information from an area of the DRC where she has worked for the last 10 years - which is very near where Wollundry Rotary have been providing help - she said the Mai Mai terrorists and Rwandan troops have been attacking villages there and killing a lot of people in thelast few months - the situation is worsening - but of course, the Australian Media does not report this!
Recommend you watch AlJazeera News- it reports on more than the current Canberra Circus-the news is not FAKE news!
A bit of background--- At least seventy armed groups are believed to be currently operating in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Despite the stabilizing presence of nineteen thousand UN peacekeepers, the stronger militant groups in the region, like the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), continue to terrorize communities and control weakly governed areas of the country, financing their activities by exploiting the country’s rich natural resources. This eastern region of the DRC has been in war since 1960 mainly due to the way colonial powers carved up the African countrys’ boundaries in the 1880s. Millions of civilians have been forced to flee the fighting in the DRC: the United Nations estimates that currently there are at least 2.7 million internally displaced persons in the DRC, and approximately 450,000 DRC refugees in other nations. There are a growing number in Australia and indeed some in our region.
A bit more about Ebola-----As of August 25, a total of 111 cases were reported, of which 83 are confirmed and 28 probable. This includes 72 deaths.
Fourteen health-care workers have been infected, with one dead.
The disease is endemic to Congo, and this is the nation's 10th outbreak since the discovery of the virus in the country in 1976.
The Ebola virus is transmitted from person to person by infected bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, faeces and breast milk. Humans can also be exposed to the virus, for example, by butchering infected animals. It is highly infectious disease.