The 1994 Goma Refugee Crisis
Goma, 14 July 1994.
Within Rwanda, the genocide was still raging. It is reckoned that more than one million people – overwhelmingly Tutsi, but also moderate Hutu, Twa (pygmies) and others who opposed the genocide – were systematically killed in less than three months.
I had arrived in Goma on 7 July, traveling from New York where I was a programme officer in the Africa section. In the previous days, the Security Council had adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of a humanitarian operation headed by France, named “Operation Turquoise”. I had been assigned the task of coordinating UNICEF support to Operation Turquoise. As I was planning to travel from Goma to the Cyangugu-Kibuye-Gikongoro triangle inside Rwanda, where the Zone Turquoise was being set up, we heard rumors that hundreds of thousands of people were on the move and approaching Goma.
Located at the border with Rwanda in what was still Zaire, Goma became the scene of a mass exodus of Rwandan ethnic Hutus. Over a period of 4 days (14-18 July 1994), some 1.2 million men, women and children crossed the Gisenyi/Goma border post.
This exodus of biblical proportion was far from spontaneous. It was partly motivated by a desire to escape renewed fighting and partly by fear of vengeance on the part of the advancing Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). It was also the product of a carefully orchestrated panic organized by the collapsing regime, in the hope of emptying the country and of taking with it the largest possible share of the population as a human shield.
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| Philippe Duamelle, Pascal Villeneuve, Steven Allen |
Before the refugee crisis, the Goma sub-office had been staffed with a small team of Zairian nationals. Within a month its staff capacity grew dramatically. Tens of internationals were brought in, including consultants from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddrb) as well as nurses from the American Red Cross.
The challenge was beyond imagination. As 1.2 million refugees, many exhausted and dehydrated, entered Goma after July 14, 1994, the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis became unimaginable. The refugee camps were initially in complete disarray. With the rocky volcanic topography and already dense population, the Goma area was almost totally inadequate for the development of sites to accommodate the refugees. Supplies were scarce to nonexistent. There was no reasonable level of sanitation; no defecation fields were designated. Makeshift blanket tents were set up everywhere, but not everyone had shelter. Fuel sources for cooking were quickly exhausted. Many of the children were unaccompanied, wandering hopelessly, the saddest legacy of displacement and civil strife. From a distance Lake Kivu appeared a quiet shade of blue-green, and enticing. It was the only immediate source of fresh water. Yet some of the refugees were so exhausted and dehydrated that they lacked the energy to even get to the water's edge. Because of previous volcanic lava flows the earth was solid rock; latrines could not be dug. Soon, there was sewage mixing with lake water. Many of the refugees were the Interahamwe who had just slaughtered 800,000 people. Security was soon to become more of a problem. Chaos, crowding, and cholera became realities.
The first case of cholera in Goma, suspected clinically on July 18, was proven by culture on July 20 as Vibrio cholerae 01 El tor. Then one of the worst cholera epidemics in recent times broke out. Every morning, as I was driving to the office, I could see tens of corpses wrapped in woven matting lying by the roadside. Twenty years later, serving as the UNICEF representative in Bangladesh, I met again Dr A.K. Siddique, a senior scientist from icddrb, who had led the team of icddrb cholera specialists in Goma. He recounted how cholera mortality started to drop significantly with the widespread use of oral rehydration therapy. I also remember Staffan de Mistura, then UNICEF representative in Somalia, coming to Goma with a cholera team to boost UNICEF’s response.
For UNICEF, one particular challenge was to coordinate the provision of care and support to more than 7,000 unaccompanied children. Of special concern was the situation of the very young infants among them, whose survival depended on round-the-clock nursing support. Initially, the mortality rate of unaccompanied infants was very high. There was simply not enough skilled workers and resources available. All helping hands were welcome. My wife Susie, who was born in Goma and is a trained nutritionist, travelled from New York to Goma and worked with local health officials, many of whom she knew from before. Over time, with the mobilization of a growing number of local and international NGOs, the health and nutritional situation of these very vulnerable children started to improve and the process of reunification intensified. Volunteers from around the world started to arrive.
Brendan Doyle, then chief of the Water and Sanitation section in New York, also came to Goma to coordinate our response in the WASH sector. The municipal water system was refurbished by UNICEF, and the local authority REGIDESO was chlorinating and supplying Goma’s residents and the refugees by August. By the same time, there were 60 tankers in operation by UNICEF, the US military, the Dutch military, MSF-Belgium and UNHCR.
I also remember our colleague Bob Davis, a senior health specialist, who worked tirelessly with Paul Basikila, the head of the North Kivu public health department, to organize what was a very successful measles vaccination campaign.
This massive humanitarian effort would not have been possible without the support and resilience of local Congolese communities, religious networks, NGOs, public services and individuals. But there were a lot of collateral damages. The refugee crisis aggravated pre-existing ethnic tensions. The cost of essential commodities and services skyrocketed, pushing already fragile families and communities to the brink of extreme poverty. In the months and years that followed, activities of rebel groups, military incursions from neighboring countries, competition for access to rare minerals and lack of the rule of law all combined to transform North Kivu into one of the most unstable places on earth.
Twenty years later, I returned to what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. My first field visit as the new UNICEF representative was to visit Goma. Things had not changed much. Or if they did it was not necessarily for the better. The refugee camps had been closed. But there were more lawless armed groups operating in North Kivu than ever before, despite Goma being the base of MONUSCO, the largest peacekeeping force in operation.
Filippo Grandi is the current United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “We climbed a mountain of dilemmas every day,” once said Filippo, who was the UNHCR coordinator in Goma during the refugee crisis. “And we were all scarred permanently”.
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