News About Congo

Congo Airliner Crashes in Kisangani

Oh My God, another airplane crash in Congo!  

The sad part of the equation, travel by air is a NECESSITY.  You can not travel by highway, rail, or waterway.  For me to get from Kinshasa, the capital, to Kananga, a provincial capital, it would take weeks or longer.  One way is go by boat (Kinshasa to Illebo) and train (Illebo to Kananga).  But we have been waiting on the train from Illebo to arrive in Kananga for about two months or more.  Two weeks ago, it finally left Illebo but it derailed a few miles out of the station.

God Have Mercy!

 

via www.nytimes.com

A passenger plane crashed in a thunderstorm as it was trying to land in Kisangani, Congo, on Friday, killing at least 48 people.

The authorities said 53 passengers survived and that at least a dozen people were trapped in the wreckage.

“I confirm the crash of one of our planes,” Stavros Papaioannou, the chairman and chief executive of Hewa Bora Airways, said in a telephone interview. “There are already 46 bodies at the morgue, and another two that just died in the hospital.”

The plane had departed from Kinshasa, the capital, and was bound for Kisangani in the northeastern part of the country.

A government spokesman, Lambert Mende, said the plane went down in bad weather a few yards from the Kisangani airport. “It was due to the thunder,” he said. “There are around 50 dead and 53 survivors, as well as a dozen people still unaccounted for.”

Hewa Bora, which means “Fresh Air” in Swahili, has a history of crashes. 

 

West Kasai Leads Polio Cases Count

Basic Water and Sanitation (WASH) issues maybe behind the rise in polio cases in DR Congo.

IRIN Africa | DRC: Polio cases on the rise | DRC | Health & Nutrition.

The Democratic Republic of Congo recorded 63 cases of type 1 poliomyelitis, the most virulent form, in 2010, with a sharp rise in cases over the past two months, according to health officials. The largest number of infections, with 50 cases of paralysis, occurred in Western Kasai province, close to the Angolan border.

 In neighbouring Republic of Congo, the same disease has killed 169 people and paralyzed 409, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Although polio usually strikes children under five, in both countries it is mainly adults who have been infected. “Vaccination campaigns only started in this country [DRC] in the mid-1980s. Those now over 30 years of age have mostly not been vaccinated,” said Health Minister Victor Makwenge Kaput.

“Citizens should employ basic hygiene measures, such as hand-washing and keeping latrines clean,” he added.

Hunger Kills 700 Kids Per Day in Peaceful Congo

In safe areas, hunger kills 700 kids a day in five peaceful provinces in Congo.  Kasai Occidental (West) is one of those places.  There is no fighting, strife, or violence in 4 of the 5 provinces cited by the Minster of Health.  Only Equateur Province has had violence in the past months. 

These provinces are located outside of the Wild, Wild East provinces of South Kivu, North Kivu, and Orientale.  I would expect the daily death total of children and women is much higher. 

700 kids die per day in DRC.

THE Democratic Republic of Congo health minister said Tuesday that at least 700 children under the age of five were dying from hunger a day in five of the strife-ravaged country's provinces.

More than a million women aged between 15 and 49 were also malnourished in the five provinces, which together account for 51 per cent of the population of the vast central African country, Health Minister Victor Makwenge said.

'At least 700 children under five years are dying every day in the five provinces, where only one child out of five has a varied diet,' Makwenge told reporters. 'Close to 530,000 children under five and more than a million women need urgent food aid,' he said.

The minister was referring to the provinces of Equateur, Kasai, Kasai West, Katanga and Maniema. UNICEF representative Pierrette Vu Thi agreed that malnutrition was a public health problem in the country, despite its rich potential for food production.

The World Food Programme says that every month it helps to feed about a million vulnerable Congolese, including pregnant women and children.

Nine Dead and Many Missing in a Congo Boat Accident

Due to the lack of roads, overcrowding of available transportation means is common.  It is a practice and not just a joke that there is always room for one more.

Nine dead, many missing after Congo boat accident | Reuters.

At least nine people died and many more were feared dead after an overloaded boat capsized on a remote stretch of river in Congo, a local official said on Tuesday.

Accidents are frequent in Congo, where lack of roads and other infrascructure leaves people with little choice but to ply a network of rivers on poorly maintained and overloaded boats.

Lightning kills three women in DR Congo

Lightning is a hazard to women because they are more likely out working than just sitting around somewhere.

We have had a least two women killed in Bulape due to lightning in the past.  It is puzzling until you think about it.  There is no large building, poles, towers, or other taller manmade objects to attract lighting.  Therefore, standing women are a bigger target.

News - Central Africa: Lightning kills three women in DR Congo.

Separate lightning strikes killed three women in the same region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, after torrential rains began, a local chief said on Tuesday.

A 26-year-old cook at a convent in the Tshimbulu district died in hospital after being struck by lightning on Friday, chief Laudes Nkashama told AFP. A second woman was killed at her home in Tshidimba, five kilometres from Tshimbulu, and a third perished in her fields at Kazadi 12 kilometres distant, the chief added.

Tshimbulu lies 112 kilometres (69 miles) east of Kananga, the capital of Kasai Occidental province.

Global Economic Crisis Halts Diamond Operations in Congo

The East and West Kasai Provinces are impacted by the De Beers' operational shutdown.  Last year, De Beers closed it office in Kananga, West Kasai.  They consolidated operations in Mbuji Mayi, East Kasai.

De Beers Halts Diamond Exploration Project in Congo

De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer, halted exploration in Democratic Republic of Congo as the declining value in gems made the project unviable.

“The DRC remains highly prospective, but we cannot ignore the current global economic crisis,” Marie-Chantal Kaninda, De Beers’s head of administration in Congo, said in a statement e- mailed today from the capital, Kinshasa. “When economic conditions improve, De Beers will assess new opportunities for accessing prospective ground holdings in this country.”

De Beers said in February it suspended mining at a Botswana venture responsible for a fifth of global diamond supply and would borrow $500 million from shareholders. Jewelry sales are plunging as the global economic slowdown forces even the wealthiest consumers to curb spending on luxury goods.

De Beers found 14 kimberlites since starting exploration in Congo’s central Western Kasai province in 2005, it said in the statement. Kimberlites are diamond-bearing rock formations. The company handed its camp in Bena Luabeya, near the diamond center of Mbuji Mayi, to the local population, it said.

Congo has run out of funds after the country’s extractive industries lost value, the International Monetary Fund’s Africa Director Brian Ames said March 31. Some of the country’s copper and cobalt mines and smelters have been shut after metal prices fell. 

Another Discovery of a Rich Diamond Deposit in Congo

Congo is a country rich in minerals.  But most its people live in extreme poverty. 

A diamond deposit may have been discovered Tshipaka located in the south west Kasai Occidental (West Kasai).  Tshipaka is located about 125 miles southwest of Bulape toward the Angola border. 

East Kasai (Oriental) is currently known for diamonds.

 

 

 

 

BRC DiamondCore May Lose Diamond Mining Licenses

Miningmx reports that JSE-listed diamond firm BRC DiamondCore may lose its South African diamond mining licenses due to dissension with unions regarding the retrenchment of 200 diamond mine workers.

According to reports, the diamond company reportedly discovered an important kimberlite discovery in the Democratic Republic of Congo six months ago. Miningmx maintains that BRC has yet to inform its shareholders about the find.

The discovery is thought to be connected to diamond geologist Mike de Witt's search for the source of the rich alluvial diamond deposits in southwest DRC, called Tshikapa.

BRC DiamondCore has focused on the area due to its strong potential to yield rare diamondiferous kimberlite deposits.