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DR Congo

DRC: Hungry Congolese dying in food-short Katanga camps

By David Lewis

DUBIE, Congo, March 19 (Reuters) - Dozens of displaced civilians are dying of hunger each month in south-east Congo, where government troops are fighting to control a renegade militia before national elections, aid workers said on Sunday.

Humanitarian workers in Democratic Republic of Congo are trying to help thousands of hungry people in camps in north and central Katanga province, but said they were overwhelmed and did not have enough food supplies to prevent severe malnutrition.

Jan Peter Stellema, a project coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres, said up to 20 people were dying each week in one of three camps at Dubie, 350 km (210 miles) north of Lubumbashi, where nearly 20,000 civilians have sought shelter.

"There is no reason for malnutrition rates to go down because there is not enough food. I see people eating manioc skin, which is usually thrown away or fed to the pigs," he told visiting journalists and United Nations aid workers in Dubie.

Hungry civilians seeking shelter in Dubie say they go for days without a meal. Some are considering leaving the camps to die at home rather than in the remote Katangese town.

Since November last year, Congolese army troops have launched major operations against former pro-government Mai Mai militias, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to seek shelter in the camps.

The Katanga fighting is taking place as Congo prepares to hold its first free, democratic elections in 40 years in June, hoping to emerge from decades of war, dictatorship and chaos.

After army operations against the Mai Mai began, civilians who fled into the bush started arriving in Dubie late last year.

Since then, just one shipment of U.N. food aid has arrived and the delivery in early February was limited to half-rations and lasted just two weeks, aid workers said.

"With the help of God, we arrived here," Kalobwa Ngoy told Reuters as she held her skeletal ten year-old son, who was on a drip in an MSF feeding centre in Dubie.

"But I have already lost three children since the fighting in November, one of them in a bed over there," she added, pointing to a bed across the room.

"FLEEING DEATH"

"We fled death but it followed us here. Maybe we'll leave as I would rather die at home," she said.

Since it started in 1998, the conflict in Congo has killed some 4 million people, mostly from hunger and disease. The U.N. has launched high profile appeals to try to respond to what some experts call the world's worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.

The five-year Congo war involving several neighbouring states officially ended in 2003 but rebels groups and militias -- and government soldiers -- still plunder villages and terrorise civilians in many parts of the vast country.

The U.N. has its largest peacekeeping mission -- nearly 17,000 soldiers and police -- trying to control the conflict, which is simmering across much of Congo's mineral-rich east.

But there are only a handful of U.N. peacekeepers available for Katanga, which is the size of France. Combat zones elsewhere in the country have a higher profile in the U.N. peacekeeping operation, which itself faces budget restrictions.

MSF is also virtually the only aid agency providing healthcare in the Katanga conflict zone.

Aid workers say there are 164,000 civilians displaced in Katanga but many take weeks to reach camps like those in Dubie.

Instead, they wander through the bush, trying to avoid both Mai Mai militiamen and government troops and feeding off roots and scraps.

"We had to leave everything and walked for weeks to get here," Muzinga Ilunga, who believed she was about 70 years old, said. "We were given some food some time ago but it did not last long," she added as she scraped at rough, dry manioc husks she was preparing to eat.