À Goma les organisations humanitaires sont très pessimistes : l'épidémie pourrait toucher jusqu'à 50 000 réfugiés

Hugues, Thomas

Rybinski, Gauthier

Gosset, Ulysse

22 juillet 1994

19940722

13:00:00

CEST

Journal de 13 heures

À Goma les organisations humanitaires sont très pessimistes : l'épidémie pourrait toucher jusqu'à 50 000 réfugiés

Bill Clinton a annoncé hier [21 juillet] le déblocage de plusieurs dizaines de millions de dollars pour les réfugiés rwandais.

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- The humanitarian disaster announced for several weeks in Rwanda is happening. The war is over, but cholera kills hundreds of refugees every day. In Goma, the border town between Rwanda and Zaire, humanitarian organizations are very pessimistic: the epidemic could affect up to 50,000 refugees.
- In principle cholera only affects between 2 and 5% of an exposed population, provided that the others are somewhat valid. Here, of course, this is not the case: those who have not succumbed to it suffer from dysentery or malaria, blessed bread for cholera which is easily grafted onto this poisoned cocktail.
- Humanitarian organizations are mobilizing. But in Goma the needs are enormous: we lack drinking water, we lack food. There is also a shortage of doctors and nurses. Yesterday [July 21] Doctors Without Borders launched an appeal for goodwill. Very quickly, volunteers showed up.
- Since yesterday [July 21], around 3,000 people have responded to the call from Médecins sans frontières. Doctors in the majority, but also nurses or anonymous people who want to help Rwanda. Everyone is welcome, but MSF above all needs the medical profession.
- Edouard Balladur this morning asked the Minister of Health, Philippe Douste-Blazy, to go without delay to Goma to deploy French medical aid. And Lucette Michaux-Chevry, Minister for Humanitarian Action, will also be visiting Rwanda and Zaire next week.
- Last night [July 21] at dinner time, America was for the first time truly stunned by the chilling reports of its special envoys on what a member of the Clinton administration called "Rwanda's African Holocaust". Brutal images which once again undoubtedly prompted Clinton to react, to ask the Pentagon soldiers to launch a massive humanitarian action plan that could change the situation on the ground. The White House is therefore freeing up $ 41 million to deliver food, grain, medicine to curb the cholera epidemic.
- The President's appearance on the scene comes late and he is already being criticized in Washington. But Bill Clinton, like Americans, remains traumatized by the humiliations suffered in Somalia. No question therefore of talking about military intervention or even relief from the French. Humanitarian aid is the priority.
- François Mitterrand has received the green light from his doctors to leave Cochin hospital. According to Professor Debré, one of his surgeons, the President of the Republic spent a completely perfect night. He can now go out starting tomorrow [July 23].