Irish agency appeals meet slow response

APPEALS by the Irish aid agencies for funds to help relieve the humanitarian crisis in eastern Zaire have met a slow response from the public, according to the agencies.

The lukewarm public reaction has been blamed on the lack of tangible evidence - especially in the form of TV - of widespread suffering so far.

The fact the 1.2 million Hutu refugees who have fled into Zaire includes a proportion of militia members who were responsible for the genocide in Rwanda two years ago is also said to be inhibiting donations.

For once, the public response is slower than that of the Government, which has committed itself to providing £1 million from lottery funds to provide relief. In, addition, further assistance is being provided to individual agencies; Concern was told this week that it would receive a special grant of £100,000.

The chief executive of Concern, Father Aengus Finucane, said there had been "no great upsurge" in donations from the public so far. This followed a difficult period for fund raising this year and last year.

According to Father Finucane, media reporting of the plight of the Hutu refugees betrayed a lack of sympathy. "It is very unfair to tar all the refugees with the same brush. Certainly some have been involved in killing but the vast majority are entirely innocent."

In camp alone, there has been 1,000 birth a month, so many of the refugees are young children, he pointed out.

Father Finucane suggested there was a case for looking at a, revision of the borders of Zaire. "Rwanda and Burundi are absolutely bursting at the seams. Beside them in Zaire, you have a country that is quite lightly populated with people, many of them tribally related."

Concern says it 30 expatriate staff in Rwanda and Zaire, including four who in Goma, are all safe. Another five staff leave for the region this week.

Trocaire says it is too early to know how its fund raising efforts are succeeding, but adds that it is "delighted" with the response to newspaper advertisements.

Another Irish agency still in Rwanda, Refugee Trust, said the public response was "much slower" than on previous occasions.

"We haven't had the bodies, the terrible sights of two years ago. At the moment, it's all happening and it's not happening. The refugees can't be located and so there is no evidence of large scale deaths," said its executive director, Father Norman Fitzgerald.

Father Fitzgerald said he expected the missing refugees would be able to take care of themselves in the bush, but the numbers involved would soon exhaust the resources available. It was a matter of days, at most a week, before people started starving, he said.

Refugee Trust plans to provide transit camps in Rwanda for refugees who choose to return to the country, and has opened talks with the local authorities and UN agencies on setting these up. The organisation has two staff but intends to send additional staff shortly.