Word: goma
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...recent morning, a neatly typed letter arrived at the offices of CARE in Goma, Zaire, addressed to relief worker Guy Banville and signed by "the refugees of Katale." Katale is a huge Rwandan refugee settlement in a valley north of Goma where the 36-year-old Canadian had been supervising food deliveries for nearly three months. "Frankly," the letter began in French, "it seems to us that you are tired of living." It concluded with a chilling ultimatum: "You must leave the region within 48 hours -- if you value your life. Thank you and bon voyage...
...refugees are Karera's family, they are in trouble. A recent survey by aid workers in Goma found that food distribution was badly skewed. Former soldiers, officials and militiamen are living well, hoarding donated food and blankets and selling these supplies at high prices. At the same time, nearly half the camp population -- notably the elderly, women and children -- are not getting enough food to ward off malnutrition...
...Kigali. If talks fail, control of the camps will provide another alternative. "We will attack, it is clear," says Karera. Gesturing toward a crowd gathered at a food-distribution center in Katale, he adds with a smile, "Do you really think this situation can last?" Foreign observers in Goma agree. "This is a classic environment for guerrilla incursions," says Captain Declan O'Brien, an Irish army logistics specialist seconded to the aid agency GOAL. "You can't have 30,000 soldiers just sitting here twiddling their thumbs...
...temporarily suspended its Rwandan refugee repatriation effort in the camps surrounding Goma, Zaire. The move came after Hutu extremists assaulted a group of big-game trackers who had asked to be taken back to their homes in Rwanda's celebrated mountain gorilla reserve. The violence escalated when Zairian gangs looted aid supplies from an air base near Goma. "We seem to be operating in a virtual state of war," said a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees...
...prepared to hand over its mission to a U.N. contingent of Ghanaian and Ethiopian soldiers. But the pending transfer threatened to spark such a mass exodus of Hutu, fearful of the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic + Army, that Zaire closed its border at Bukavu in an effort to prevent another Goma...