DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Up to 300,000 refugees poured back into the Democratic Republic of Congo's lava-encrusted eastern capital of Goma yesterday, risking toxic fumes, a cholera epidemic and the threat of more flows from the erupting Mount Nyiragongo.
Turning their back on the promised UN camps in Rwanda, many returnees said they would take their chances in Congo.
Viewed from a helicopter yesterday, Goma was a scene of Pompeii-style devastation. The middle of the town, north to south, was buried under a black-brown slick of cooling lava, scattered with orange pools where magma still oozed. Lines of people criss-crossed it, some walking over the cooling crust.
The Rwandan-backed rebel authority and the UN urged people to return to Rwanda, to where they had fled late on Thursday. Mr Peter Hornsby, leader of the UN peacekeeping contingent, said it would "take 14 days for the lava to stop emitting toxic gas. The experts say the children and elderly need to be got out of here as quickly as possible."
Aid workers criticised the UN for failing to provide food and shelter outside Goma in time to stop the mass return. Dr Monica Castellarnau of Médicins Sans Frontières said: "There's no water or power and no stocks of medicine. And there is cholera in the lake which they're drinking from." She said three returnees had died of cholera yesterday.
Women streamed along side-roads leading to Lake Kivu, carrying yellow cans of lake water on their heads. "Yes, we drink it, we have nothing else," Ms Victoria Kaindu said. After drinking the lake's waters for three days, her five children had diarrhoea.
"It doesn't make any difference," she said. "Our house has disappeared, but we prefer to lie on Congolese earth than Rwandan earth." On a beach below the border post a mile from town, a crowd of returning Gomans briefly clashed with Rwandan and rebel fighters who were trying to usher them back to a UN reception centre. "We will not go to camps, we will not be prisoners in Rwanda," Ms Claudine Kamembe said.
The UN World Food Programme said yesterday it was preparing to feed 300,000 refugees in camps 20 miles inside Rwanda. But by mid-morning, the road leading there was largely empty of people. Abandoned grass and banana leaf shelters showed where about 300,000 Congolese people had spent the previous night.
Though earth tremors shook the region throughout yesterday, vulcanologists said the risk of a major eruption throwing more lava on to the town was diminishing.
Paul Cullen adds: Irish aid agencies have responded to the emergency in Goma by offering aid and launching appeals for funds.
Concern Worldwide is to send a plane with 40 tons of shelter materials for up to 7,000 people, water purification equipment and household goods today.
Two Concern personnel, Mr Paul O'Brien and Mr Paul Harvey, travelled to Goma yesterday. Unicef Ireland has appealed for funds and Trócaire is to decide today what action it plans to take.