Crisis in the Congo

On Friday, the BBC reported that refugee camps in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo had been forcibly evacuated, looted, and burned. 50,000 people were displaced by the destruction, and a million people are estimated to be have displaced by the general conflict. Lootings, murders, and rapes were reported, mostly perpetrated by Congolese troops (although both sides have their hands dirty).

Background

The area has been unstable since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. General Laurent Nkunda leads the rebel faction and has said that he is trying to protect his Tutsi community from Hutu rebels. (The Hutus killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the genocide.) Nkunda is very likely receiving support from the Rwandan government under Tutsi president Paul Kagame. Rwanda has denied allegations of supporting Nkunda, but has overtly invaded DR Congo twice, including once in a five-year war that also brought in Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Uganda.

Other complicating factors are the ethnic diversity of the area, which is home to at least six ethnic groups, and its mineral wealth. The region has gold and coltan, which is used to make cell phones, and Nkunda is unhappy with a $5 billion deal between China and the Congolese government granting the Chinese access to the region.

A cease-fire in the civil war was signed in January, but the Congolese government was either unable or unwilling to prevent a third Hutu faction from using its territory, and the conflict reignited in August.

A Humanitarian Crisis

In the past ten years, five million people have died and another one million have been displaced. Food and water are scarce, and aid agencies' handouts have caused stampedes. A UN aid convoy was able to pass from Goma through Congolese and rebel lines to Rutshuru to deliver medical supplies and water purification tablets to refugees. However, many have fled into the forest, where aid cannot reach them.

Secretary General Ban ki-Moon will travel to East Africa to help resolve the crisis. Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has called for an increase in the size and the power of the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo. The Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en RD Congo (MONUC) has 17,000 peacekeepers in the region and is the UN's largest peacekeeping mission.

What You Can Do

Donate to the UN Refugee Agency or to Oxfam, and write to your Representative and Senators.

First Pictures of Okapi in 50 Years

Today the Agence France-Presse reported that a British zoological team captured the first pictures of Okapi, an African animal whose closest relative is the giraffe, in the wild in over 50 years, proving that the animal did not go extinct as was previously believed. The elusive animals were photographed using camera traps in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

For more, please read the article below.

British team capture first pictures of

Africa's 'unicorn'

LONDON (AFP) - The okapi, an African animal so elusive that it was once believed to be a mythical unicorn, has been photographed in the wild for the first time, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said Thursday.

Camera traps set by the ZSL and the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) captured pictures of the okapi in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The pictures have dispelled fears that the species had died out in more than a decade of civil war.

Dr Noelle Kumpel, ZSL's Bushmeat and Forests Conservation Programme Manager, said: "To have captured the first-ever photographs of such a charismatic creature is amazing, and particularly special for ZSL given that the species was originally described here over a century ago.

"Okapi are very shy and rare animals, which is why conventional surveys only tend to record droppings and other signs of their presence."

The okapi, which have a black, giraffe-like tongue and zebra-like stripes on their behind, were last spotted in the Virunga National Park nearly 50 years ago on the west bank of the Semliki River.

The new ZSL survey revealed a previously unknown okapi population on the east side of the river.

Thierry Lusenge, a member of ZSL's Democratic Republic of Congo survey team, said: "The photographs clearly show the stripes on their rear, which act like unique fingerprints.

"We have already identified three individuals, and further survey work will enable us to estimate population numbers and distribution in and around the park, which is a critical first step in targeting conservation efforts."

The exact status of the okapi is unknown as civil conflict and poor infrastructure makes access to the forests of DRC difficult.

But ZSL warned that even the newly-discovered okapi population was under threat from poachers.

Okapi meat, reportedly from the Virunga park, is now on sale in the nearby town of Beni and ZSL warned that if hunting continues at the current rate, okapi could become extinct in the park within a few years.