CONGO: More than 1,000 Congolese civilians are dying every day, nearly all from disease and malnutrition, due to a conflict which has killed 3.8 million people, according to an aid agency.
Although the Democratic Republic of Congo's five-year war was declared over last year, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said yesterday it was still the "deadliest crisis" in the world but the international community was doing too little to stop it.
"In a matter of six years, the world lost a population equivalent to the entire country of Ireland or the city of Los Angeles," said Dr Richard Brennan, one of the authors of a mortality study by the private New York-based refugee relief agency. "How many innocent Congolese have to perish before the world starts paying attention?"
The study updates a previous widely agreed death toll of three million people from the war which sucked in six neighbouring countries.
Based on a survey of 19,500 households, it found almost half of those who died were children under five and 98 per cent of people were killed by disease and malnutrition resulting from a healthcare system destroyed by the years of war.
In 2002 peace deals were signed and a transitional government set up last year, charged with leading the vast central African nation to elections in 2005, but huge tracts of the east remain unstable. Last month, tiny neighbour Rwanda threatened to attack rebels in Congo, fuelling fears of a return to full-scale war.
"If the effects of insecurity and violence in Congo's eastern provinces were removed entirely, mortality would reduce to almost normal levels," the agency said, citing the case of Kisangani, a town where fighting has ended, basic services have been restored and mortality has dropped by four-fifths.
Highlighting the discrepancy between the $3.5 billion aid budget for Iraq in 2003 and the $188 million earmarked for Congo in 2004, the IRC labelled the international community's response to Congo's crisis "grossly inadequate in proportion to need".
Improving security, increasing basic medical care and providing immunisation and clean water would save thousands of lives in Congo, Dr Brennan said. "There's no shortage of evidence. It's sustained compassion and political will that's lacking," he added.