D.R. Congo: Life in Ango
Medair brings aid to desperate people in a forgotten region of D.R. Congo.
Until last September, 22-year-old Tanda lived contentedly with his parents and three brothers in the village of Asa/Suduki. A hard-working student, schoolwork was his main focus and concern. And then everything changed. Tanda Mboliundolani lives as an internally displaced person in Ango town. Kilibinge, a nurse at Dafia health centre, speaks with Medair Country Director, Geoff Andrews Medair and the local community rehabilitate a bridge in Nangbongo on the Isiro-Ango road.
Without warning, a militia group viciously attacked his village, killing one person and terrorising residents. Tanda and his brothers fled on foot toward Ango town, 65 kilometres away. But his parents were working in the fields during the attack, so they fled to neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) with the hopes of reuniting with their children there.
“By the time we arrived in Ango, they told us that our house and everything in it had been burnt down,” said Tanda. “Before, we only had school to think about. Now that our parents are not here, it’s just us. We lack a lot of things. Getting something to eat is difficult, getting clothes is difficult. We have no money.”
For the last two years, attacks against villages in the Ango region of Bas-Uélé district have made Tanda’s story an all-too-common one. “We have lost everything,” said Oscar Musi Sasa, Chairman of the Ango IDP (internally displaced persons) Committee. “If you go back to the abandoned villages, you will find nothing, it is as if no one was ever there.”
Before the attacks, Ango town had about 8,000 residents, but as displaced people and returnees have flocked to take refuge here, 20,000 people now live in Ango, far more than the town’s infrastructure can bear. “Ango was not always like this,” said Oscar. “Before, people could farm enough to feed their families, but now they are hosting IDPs as well, so they do not have enough.”
As Ango’s population expands, everyone has become increasingly vulnerable. They need food, health care, medicine, clean water, and sanitation. However, until recently, many displaced people had received no humanitarian aid.
The reason? Ango is located in a very isolated area of D.R. Congo. There is only one secure road that leads from the main town of Isiro to Ango, but bridges along the way are in poor condition, preventing heavy trucks from accessing the region. Medical supplies and construction materials can take a month to reach Ango due to the poor roads—even longer during the rainy season.
In January 2011, Medair launched three vital projects in Ango territory: rehabilitating bridges to open up road access, providing emergency health care, and improving WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) access for the vulnerable population.
Our Medair team met Tanda when we arrived in Ango. He lives in a small mud structure in Ango town with his three brothers and survives on one meal a day. Tanda attends school in the morning when he can afford it, works in other people’s fields until evening to make a small income to pay for school, and does schoolwork at night.
A few months ago, when Tanda fell ill with malaria, he could not afford to go to the hospital for proper treatment. Instead, he borrowed money so that he could buy paracetamol to reduce his headache.
Access to health care is a major need in Ango. Health facilities are run by staff with sometimes only basic training. To buy medicines, clinics engage someone to travel as far as 600 kilometres to Kisangani (a two-week ride by bicycle) to bring back essential medicines. Health centres often experience serious shortages in medicine stock, inhibiting them from providing adequate care.
“What struck us the most when we first arrived in Ango was that clinics had been completely abandoned and most lacked even basic material for health care provision,” said Donna Ngadjole, Medair’s Supervisor Coordinator in Ango. “We were at a point where we could not even talk about quality of health care because it was very low.”
Medair is now supporting one hospital and five health centres in Ango territory. Our nurse supervisors travel on motorbikes through sometimes insecure zones to reach clinics in remote areas. We ensure that the clinics have enough medicine and we train the staff to improve the quality of care provided.
Medair also provides free health care to the most vulnerable members of the community.
“My brother is sick,” said Tanda. “He has had a stomach ache and malaria for over a week now. But the people from Medair have told us that we can get treated for free.”
Access to clean drinking water is also a major problem in the Ango region. “Patients used to fetch water from the river, four kilometres away,” said Kilibinge, a nurse at the Dafia clinic. “The water there was contaminated, so we dug a well close to the clinic, but the water in the well is not treated. As a result, we have had cases of all sorts of diarrhoea here.”
Sanitation in Ango territory is even worse. Most people don’t have latrines, so they go to the bush to relieve themselves. Where latrines exist, they are often not to the required standards for health and hygiene. “Here, people do not really understand hygiene,” said Henri Mbolieko, recently trained as a community mobiliser by Medair. “People do not understand the importance of washing their hands before preparing food or eating.”
Medair is working to improve access to drinking water and sanitation facilities in six localities in Ango territory where the needs are greatest. We are building or rehabilitating water points, supporting the construction of 373 household latrines, providing health clinics with latrines, bathrooms, and waste management facilities, and conducting widespread training on proper hygiene. “With the training we have received from Medair, we will inform others to change the way we live here,” said Henri.
Meanwhile, a Medair team is repairing and building 15 bridges on the road between Ango and Isiro so that other humanitarian agencies can more easily reach Ango with aid. Wooden support beams on the three largest metal bridges are broken or missing, so new ones need to be installed to allow trucks to cross. The team is working with the local community on the bridge project, hiring day labourers and involving the community in planning meetings.
“With this project, Medair is opening the area to significant humanitarian aid, building bridges that will literally connect humanitarian actors with thousands of isolated people in desperate need of emergency assistance,” said Dr. Geoff Andrews, Medair Country Director.
For Tanda, one of 52 youth in Ango town separated from parents and family, he just hopes to receive enough assistance to help him and his brothers get food, pay for school, and receive health care when they are sick.
“We would like to see our parents too,” said Tanda. “But there is just no means to do that right now.”
As attacks continue, emergency needs remain high in this underserved jungle region of D.R. Congo. Medair is actively working to provide people like Tanda and his brothers with aid that will help save and sustain their lives until they are able to return to their homes. Your donations make our life-saving work possible. Please donate today.
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Medair’s D.R. Congo programmes are supported by the E.C. Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection, the United States Agency for International Development, the Pooled Fund, the Global Fund, and private donors.
This web feature was produced with resources gathered by Medair field and headquarters staff. The views expressed herein are those solely of Medair and should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of any other organisation.
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