The use of heavy artillery in densely populated areas can have a devasting impact on civilians caught in the crossfire. Power lines and transformers have been damaged in the fighting, cutting off electricity to the city and having a serious impact on humanitarian operations and public health.
Some health facilities have struggled to uphold standards of hygiene to prevent the spread of infections; some hospitals have seen patients that were on ventilators die. Others still have had to postpone surgical operations because they had no electricity to power the machines to monitor patients, keep the lights on in operating theatres or sterilize equipment. In some cases, refrigeration of medicines and bodies in morgues came to a halt.
Because the water supply was cut, people have been forced to take untreated water directly from the lake, putting themselves at risk of catching waterborne diseases that are endemic in the area, such as cholera.
Thanks to security guarantees given by the parties to the conflict, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been able to work with technicians from a private company to restore power for 70 per cent of the city. That in turn enabled the pumping station at Kyeshero to be switched back on. The station provides water for several neighbourhoods in Goma and some health facilities, such as the CBCA Ndosho Hospital. More repairs to other power lines are needed to restore power to 100 per cent of the city.
“Maintaining or restoring essential services such as health care and access to water, whether in urban or rural areas, is part of our everyday activities under our mandate to protect people affected by armed conflict,” said Myriam Favier, the head of the ICRC’s subdelegation in Goma. “We are delighted to see that in addition to providing other essential services for people, restoring power has enabled many people to make phone calls and get back in touch with their loved ones.”
The ICRC and volunteers from the Red Cross Society of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are working with the authorities to recover the many bodies of people killed by the fighting in the centre of the city. The ICRC has provided supplies, such as body bags, and technical and logistical support to ensure the dead are treated with dignity and managed properly so as to be able to give the families answers to their questions one day.
“Managing dead bodies properly and with dignity, as difficult as that may be, is a humanitarian imperative. It enables us to identify more easily those who have died and to ease people’s suffering by being able to tell them what happened to their loved ones,” said Myriam Favier.
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