UN: Disaster in Congo is a "Fait Accompli"

Congo could be left with a "skeleton population" unless donor countries boost delivery of health care and other basic needs, UN experts said. "The country, one of the largest and richest in Africa, is facing not a disaster in the making, but a fait accompli," said a report by the experts from UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) on their 12-day visit to Congo. "Every facet of society whether human rights or economy, education or water and sanitation, housing or social care has collapsed," the report said. The report blamed "decades of state and external looting of national resources" and war for pushing "Congolese households over the brink." HIV/AIDS is "rampaging" through the country, the report said. Malaria, measles, malnutrition, and respiratory infections are increasing even as access to heath care has plummeted.

The report will be discussed by UN member countries in Geneva on July 9 and 10 at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN Economic and Social Council. The Congolese government will need international support for at least five years, the report said. The 10-person mission, which looked at conditions across Congo, said $535 million is needed each year just to reverse the downhill slide into death and disease. The report said the issue is not just money. Aid has to be given to restoring the government's own health and welfare programs. UN members must shift their focus from exclusively "funding UN peacekeepers, human rights observers, and humanitarian 'projects,' essential as they are," the report said. Otherwise, "in many areas there will be literally only a skeleton population for whom to build peace."

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