MPs on Congo visit meet air crash survivors

Three British members of Parliament on a fact-finding visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo were caught up in the chaos that followed last Tuesday’s fatal air crash in Goma. The MPs were on their way to a press conference organised by ActionAid when they heard the news of the crash.

When the MPs and ActionAid staff arrived at Goma's Heal Africa hospital, where the press conference was to be held, they saw cars bringing in dead and injured people, and relatives weeping over the dead.

The press conference was cancelled and instead, the MPs visited some of the injured people in the hospital.

Eric Joyce, MP for Falkirk, gave an eyewitness account to BBC News 24 on his mobile phone.

His companions on the trip were Jeremy Corbyn, MP for North Islington, and Judy Mallaber, MP for Amber Valley. Representing the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Great Lakes Region, the three spent two days in Goma and North Kivu province before travelling to the capital, Kinshasa.

On their first day they visited a project supported by ActionAid and run by a local partner, Anamad. They were welcomed by hundreds of women survivors of sexual violence, many of them living with HIV, and by orphans who live at the Anamad centre.

Jeanine Bulonya, vice president of Anamad, told the MPs: "We are tired of sexual violence. From 1996 until today women and girls have been raped daily in DR Congo. We now need development in our country and not war."

The MPs were impressed by the palm-leaf baskets, mats and other craftwork produced by the women at the centre.

After a breakfast meeting with international NGOs, on Tuesday morning the MPs spent three hours at Mugunga 2, one of several camps around Goma where people fleeing the conflict have settled. At a centre for women, built by ActionAid, they saw some of the women’s craft products and observed Swahili literacy lessons and French language lessons in progress.

Jeremy Corbyn said: "I am impressed by the work that is going on in the camp. It’s really impressive to see displaced people producing beautiful articles and educating themselves."

The MPs watched a play, performed by women residents of the camp and based on their own experiences of war, invasion, and sexual and other forms of violence.

Afterwards Zawadi Josephine, vice president of the camp, made a moving speech. "We were living on the produce from our fields, eating three or four times a day. Today we have to beg for food. Our children do not go to school. They have become street kids. How are we going to build the DRC with illiterate youth?"

She described how women in the camp have to carry heavy loads to earn money to buy food. Some have been raped when they went to look for firewood in the bush.

Zawadi asked the MPs to tell President Joseph Kabila that displaced people need a lasting peace in the region because they need to go back to their villages. They are very concerned because their children do not go to school. And they want the international community to get involved in stopping the conflict in eastern DRC, because women and children are the first victims.