Our concerns
Inadequate access to healthcare
The second wave of COVID-19 is increasing the pressure on already scarce healthcare resources, including ICU beds.
Inadequate access to healthcare
The second wave of COVID-19 is increasing the pressure on already scarce healthcare resources, including ICU beds.
Supporting health authorities
We are supporting a 40-bed COVID-19 unit at the Cliniques Universitaires de Kinshasa. We’ve also equipped the MSF-supported Hospital of Kinshasa and the General Hospital in Kananga with isolation tents and established a referral system for confirmed COVID-19 patients to receive appropriate care.
Médecins Sans Frontières is providing support and medical care around the world to counter the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re providing essential care through dedicated COVID-19 facilities, equipping frontline medical staff with PPE and training, and supporting health authorities through testing and community education.
With 50 years of experience fighting epidemics, we’re committed to protecting the most vulnerable and saving lives.
Until recently, the country has been at the centre of what some observers have called “Africa’s world war”: the five-year conflict saw government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, clash with rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda.
Despite a peace deal and the formation of a transitional government in 2003, people in the east of the country remain in fear of death, rape or displacement by marauding militias and the army.
Rwandan Refugee Camps in Zaire and Tanzania 1994-1995
Following the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, nearly 2 million ethnic Hutus fled across the border into eastern DRC, as well as Tanzania and Burundi, where they settled in large refugee camps. Humanitarian access to the camps was severely limited, or outright denied; and refugees were subjected to targeted armed attacks by Rwandan and Burundian armies, as well as the AFDL (Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo) forces.
MSF tried to provide aid to both refugees and local populations caught in the fighting. These teams came face to face with the AFDL’s and the Rwandan army’s bloody methods, which included using humanitarian organisations as a lure to draw refugees out of hiding.
In the years since the atrocity, MSF released a detailed case study, highlighting the dilemmas that emerge from humanitarian involvement in conflict situations. The report outlines the decision for MSF staff to speak out.