World

People Return To Goma, Aid Is Coming

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 18, 2002 / 7:44 AM EST / CBS

U.N. agencies said major relief supplies could start flowing to Congo's volcano-stricken town of Goma soon but security concerns remained high despite expert opinion that the eruption was over.

More than 90 percent of the 300,000 people who fled the lava flowing from Mount Nyiragongo, 12 miles north of Goma, have returned home. Thousands more waited in neighboring Gisenyi, Rwanda, for boats to take them across Lake Kivu to other Congolese cities.

Jacques Durieux, a vulcanologist at the French Group for the Study of Active Volcanoes, said there were no indications that another eruption of the volcano was imminent, and no more lava was flowing. He said it was now safe for the United Nations to deliver aid directly to Goma and for the refugees to return home.

"The active phase of the volcanic eruption is finished," said Durieux, who was contracted by the United Nations to assess the situation. He said continuing earth tremors caused by the settling of the area following Thursday's eruption were the only remaining threat. He said most of the buildings in Congo were simple structures and therefore resistant to earthquakes.

Laura Melo, spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Program, said the agency would begin distributing food Tuesday outside Goma and planned to deliver food to Goma itself no later than Wednesday.

Hungry residents said help could not come soon enough to the town, where earth tremors still make houses shudder and heat radiates from glassy fields of lava choking many streets.

Five days after swathes of Goma vanished under a tide of magma, residents standing in a street engulfed by crusted lava said they still had difficulty finding food and water.

Some said they had not eaten for several days.

"Everything we had was burnt, we've got nothing left," said John Pungwe, 26, a student who lost his diplomas when his house was crushed by Africa's deadliest volcanic eruption in 25 years.

"We've heard the international community is here, but we haven't seen any aid yet," he said, holding a plastic bottle he hoped to fill with cooking oil distributed by a local church.

U.N. agencies launched an emergency appeal for an initial $15 million for food, shelter and medicines, saying the funds would cover needs for the next seven to 15 days.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in Geneva agencies were preparing six sites for aid distribution and two sites for temporary resettlement near Goma, but that distribution had not yet started.

"The humanitarian aid agencies are discussing to start distribution in Goma, with a contingency plan ready in case people cross the border back in Rwanda," OCHA said.

There was widespread frustration that despite the aid agencies' presence substantial help had yet to materialize.

"We have no drinking water, we have nothing to eat, we don't even have houses," said Jeanine Nadjuma, 28, throwing up her hands in a gesture of despair.

"It's not just me, it' everyone," she said, explaining that several of her six children had fallen sick due to lack of food since the eruption.

"We are under heavy pressure to start helping people. If we are now being told there's no danger, we are eager to start feeding them," said Brenda Barton of the U.N. World Food Program.

Amos Namanga Ngongi, the Kinshasa-based head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, dubbed MONUC, was expected in Goma Tuesday to assess the situation in what had been the mission's headquarters in rebel-held eastern Congo.

Lava flows across the airport have made it unusable as a logistics base for supporting the U.N. observers monitoring the cease-fire in Congo's 3½-year civil war. MONUC's Goma headquarters were looted just after its staff evacuated to Rwanda after the eruption.