More deadly attacks against civilian populations in Haut-Uélé

Democratic Republic of Congo | 29 December 2008

Following an attack by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) on the city of Faradje (Haut Uélé), on Christmas Day, a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) team arrived in the town on 28 Dec. to provide emergency medical assistance. Shortly, the team will also go to Doruma city, where a similar attack resulted in dozens of deaths.

News of the attack on Faradje, a city of 25,000 people in Northeastern Democratic Repblic of Congo (DRC), first reached the MSF team in Dungu on the evening of 25 Dec. The attack was a response to recent military operations against LRA bases located in the surroundings of the Garamba National Park. On the following morning, a nurse from Tadu, a small town 20 kilometres south of Faradje, signaled by radio the arrival of approximately 15,000 people fleeing the attack. The nurse confirmed that Faradje’s chief doctor and another civil servant had been killed in the attack. According to him, many seriously wounded victims were still stuck in the city’s hospital, which was left without proper equipment following looting by LRA soldiers.

On 28 Dec, an expatriate doctor, the Dungu project coordinator and a nurse landed in Faradje. A second airplane from the Mission Aviation Fellowship chartered from Bunia also arrived on site to evacuate the most seriously wounded patients. Among the fifteen wounded still in the city’s hospital, four needed to be urgently flown to Dungu. All had been wounded by guns or knives. The MSF team left medical equipment for the hospital’s staff before leaving on the same day.

The team reports that the LRA attack on Faradje was large scale: markets and houses were burnt down and the remaining population is left living in fear of future attacks. According to local authorities, more than sixty people were killed on 25 Dec. and an unknown number were kidnapped.

As soon as security conditions allow, MSF will evaluate the needs of the thousands of people who fled Faradje without any goods to ensure their survival. Assitisting this population is a difficult task as MSF remains one of the only organizations able to work outside Dungu city today.

The city of Doruma, which is close to the border of Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) was the second target of the LRA attacks. Missionaries present in the area report numerous dead and wounded and MSF is planning a similar intervention in the coming days.