DAKAR, Senegal: Congo’s Kasai region is the latest deadly hotspot in the vast Central African country that has had violent rebellions for decades. Once again, children are among the most vulnerable victims.
Well over 1 million people have fled the fighting that began a year ago when Congo’s military killed the regional tribal leader of the Kamwina Nsapu militia. More than 3,300 people in the region have died, according to estimates by the Catholic church. The UN has counted more than 80 mass graves.
Across the once-peaceful region, children are forced to take up weapons, either recruited by militias or to defend their homes. Children make up more than half of the displaced people, said Yvon Edoumou, spokesman for the UN humanitarian office in Congo.
“We see families who say they are fleeing because militias were going into their villages, and most of the time we have one mother and two to four young kids, even toddlers and babies in their arms,” Edoumou said. “The men are almost nowhere to be seen. So children are taking a very heavy toll from all this violence.”
Children in the Kasai region are being forced to endure horrific ordeals such as abuse and recruitment into militia groups, the UN children’s agency says, with more than 850,000 left without basic services.
One 12-year-old told the agency he escaped from a militia group where he was a combatant. Now in a UN-backed safe house, he is trying to deal with the trauma.
“I was given things to swallow. Afterwards, they took a machete and hit me three times on the chest. Next they gave me plastic bags to swallow, saying that if I concentrate on something, I can become it,” he said. “After that, they hurt me all over to show that even if I am attacked, I can’t be hurt. In the end, they gave me a knife and stick to go and fight.”
He said he decided to leave “because promises weren’t kept. Also, lots of people had been killed.”
The boy wants to return to his family and go to school but faces the risk of stigma and violent reprisals.
About 440,000 children in the Kasai region could not complete their schooling last year, largely due to the violence and insecurity, UNICEF says. It has launched a campaign to get 150,000 children back into school.
Another boy, 16-year-old Edouard, was taking exams when the fighting reached his hometown. His school is among the 400 that UNICEF says have been attacked.
“There was the noise of gunfire. We had never experienced that in our lives. When we heard it for the first time, we were scared and we ran,” he told the agency. He said he lived in the forest with his family, surviving on leaves and edible roots.
With so many lives affected, the UN and other humanitarian organizations have been trying to gain a footing in the remote and impoverished Kasai region. And security concerns soared after the murder of two UN experts in March.
The biggest needs are water, food and medicine, particularly for children, Edoumou said. But funding is low. A $64.5 million UN request for support is not even halfway funded, he said.
Both Congolese and the international community are watching in dismay as the initial fighting between government forces and militias has shifted and made the region even more precarious.
“It has evolved into fighting between communities who up until months ago had been living together in a peaceful way,” Edoumou said.
Communities, including children, have turned to defending their homes and whatever ethnic rights their area demands, he said.
The UN’s human rights office has warned of ethnic cleansing and urged Congo’s government to prevent further violence in the Kasai region, which has been a stronghold of opposition to President Joseph Kabila’s administration. Security forces have been known to back local leaders seen as loyal to Kabila, while militia groups have supported those believed to back the opposition.
Congo’s long-delayed presidential elections contribute to the tensions. Though voter registration finally began this week for millions in the Kasai region, the electoral commission says the work won’t be completed until next year — defying an agreement with the opposition that called for a vote by the end of 2017.
Children flee, fight amid Congo’s growing Kasai violence
Children flee, fight amid Congo’s growing Kasai violence
EU leaders to reassess US ties despite Trump U-turn on Greenland
- Diplomats stressed that, although Thursday’s emergency EU talks in Brussels would now lose some of their urgency, the longer-term issue of how to handle the relationship with the US remained
BRUSSELS: EU leaders will rethink their ties with the US at an emergency summit on Thursday after Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs and even military action to acquire Greenland badly shook confidence in the transatlantic relationship, diplomats said.
Trump abruptly stepped back on Wednesday from his threat of tariffs on eight European nations, ruled out using force to take Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and suggested a deal was in sight to end the dispute.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, welcoming Trump’s U-turn on Greenland, urged Europeans not to be too quick to write off the transatlantic partnership.
But EU governments remain wary of another change of mind by a mercurial president who is increasingly seen as a bully that Europe will have to stand up to, and they are focused on coming up with a longer-term plan on how to deal with the United States under this administration and possibly its successors too.
“Trump crossed the Rubicon. He might do it again. There is no going back to what it was. And leaders will discuss it,” one EU diplomat said, adding that the bloc needed to move away from its heavy reliance on the US in many areas.
“We need to try to keep him (Trump) close while working on becoming more independent from the US It is a process, probably a long one,” the diplomat said.
EU RELIANCE ON US
After decades of relying on the United States for defense within the NATO alliance, the EU lacks the needed intelligence, transport, missile defense and production capabilities to defend itself against a possible Russian attack. This gives the US substantial leverage.
The US is also Europe’s biggest trading partner, making the EU vulnerable to Trump’s policies of imposing tariffs to reduce Washington’s trade deficit in goods, and, as in the case of Greenland, to achieve other goals.
“We need to discuss where the red lines are, how we deal with this bully across the Atlantic, where our strengths are,” a second EU diplomat said.
“Trump says no tariffs today, but does that mean also no tariffs tomorrow, or will he again quickly change his mind? We need to discuss what to do then,” the second diplomat said.
The EU had been considering a package of retaliatory tariffs on 93 billion euros ($108.74 billion) on US imports or anti-coercive measures if Trump had gone ahead with his own tariffs, while knowing such a step would harm Europe’s economy as well as the United States.
WHAT’S THE GREENLAND DEAL?
Several diplomats noted there were still few details of the new plan for Greenland, agreed between Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte late on Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Nothing much changed. We still need to see details of the Greenland deal. We are a bit fed up with all the bullying. And we need to act on a few things: more resiliency, unity, get our things together on internal market, competitiveness. And no more accepting tariff bullying,” a third diplomat said.
Rutte told Reuters in an interview in Davos on Thursday that under the framework deal he reached with Trump the Western allies would have to step up their presence in the Arctic.
He also said talks would continue between Denmark, Greenland and the US on specific issues.
Diplomats stressed that, although Thursday’s emergency EU talks in Brussels would now lose some of their urgency, the longer-term issue of how to handle the relationship with the US remained.
“The approach of a united front in solidarity with Denmark and Greenland while focusing on de-escalation and finding an off-ramp has worked,” a fourth EU diplomat said.
“At the same time it would be good to reflect on the state of the relationship and how we want to shape this going forward, given the experiences of the past week (and year),” he said.
