MSF vaccination used as bait in unacceptable attack on civilians
Kinshasa – Seven Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) vaccination sites, where thousands of civilians had gathered, came under fire during attacks by the Congolese army against the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)…
MSF launched a mass vaccination campaign in Masisi district to support the Ministry of Health in response to a measles epidemic. On October 17, MSF medical teams were vaccinating thousands of children in seven different sites in Ngomashi and Kimua zones, controlled by the FDLR at the time.
All parties to the conflict had given security guarantees to MSF to vaccinate at these locations at those times. However, the Congolese national army launched attacks on each of the vaccination sites. All the people who had come to get their children vaccinated were forced to flee the heavy fighting. Scattering everywhere, they are now in unknown locations and thus cannot be vaccinated. MSF had to stop their activities in these zones and evacuate the teams to Goma city.
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