Report says Congo is world's deadliest humanitarian crisis

DAKAR, Senegal — War-ravaged Congo is suffering the world's deadliest humanitarian crisis, with 38,000 people dying each month mostly from easily treatable diseases, a study published Friday in Britain's leading medical journal said.

Nearly 4 million people died between 1998-2004 alone — the indirect result of years of ruinous fighting that has brought on a stunning collapse of public-health services, the study in the Lancet concluded.

The majority of deaths were due to disease rather than violence, but war has cut off or reduced access to health services for millions in the impoverished nation the size of Europe.

Most deaths reported were due to "preventable and easily treatable diseases," the study said. Malaria, diarrhea, respiratory infections and malnutrition topped the list.

Major fighting ended in Congo in 2002 but the situation remains dire because of continued insecurity, poor access to health care and inadequate international aid. The problems are particularly acute in eastern Congo.

"Rich donor nations are miserably failing the people of [Congo], even though every few months the mortality equivalent of two southeast Asian tsunamis plows through its territory," the study said.

Backed by about 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers, Congo's government is struggling to re-establish authority across the country ahead of elections expected later this year, the first in decades. Militiamen still roam huge swaths of the east, formerly controlled by several different rebel groups whose leaders have been allotted top government posts.

The study was based on a survey of 19,500 households across the country of 60 million between April and July 2004. Health Ministry workers and staff of the aid group International Rescue Committee conducted the interviews.

The results showed Congo's monthly mortality rate was 40 percent higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa — 2.1 deaths per 1,000 people, or the equivalent of 1,200 fatalities per day, compared with a continental average of 1.5 deaths per 1,000.

Mortality rates were highest in Congo's eastern provinces, which have been racked by fighting and lawlessness for a decade. There, death rates were 93 percent higher than the sub-Saharan Africa average.

"The persistently high mortality in ... Congo is deeply disturbing and indicates that both national and international efforts to address the crisis remain grossly inadequate," the report said.

The survey is the fourth of its kind conducted in Africa's third-largest nation. The International Rescue Committee conducted three earlier surveys, the last of which in 2004 said that six years of conflict had claimed 3.8 million lives, mostly due to disease and food shortages.

Congo's government dismissed the report.

"I consider that a big lie," Minister of Information Henri Mova Sakanyi said. "These figures are very exaggerated. All over the world, people die of disease, it's not just Congo.

"It's known that [aid] agencies have often played with the figures ... to get financial support."

The Lancet study said the deaths counted were "excess" deaths that would not have occurred if the situation in Congo were normal.

Congo "remains the world's deadliest humanitarian crisis," the study said. "Improvements in security and increased humanitarian assistance are urgently needed."

Millions in "Horn"

close to starvation

ROME — An estimated 11 million people in the Horn of Africa "are on the brink of starvation" because of severe drought and war, with some deaths already being reported in Kenya, the United Nations said Friday.

People in Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia need food aid, water, new livestock and seeds, the U.N.'s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said.