Conflict, neglect cripple healthcare for Congo poor

"But this precarious situation has, of course, been exacerbated by the insecurity, which has reduced healthcare to virtually nothing," he said in the remains of Muvule health center, 75 km (50 miles) southwest of Mitwaba town."Conflict, neglect cripple healthcare for Congo poor - Nearly 200,000 people in a remote corner of Congo share one doctor, three nurses and a hospital most cannot reach, let alone afford, aid workers said on Thursday.

The collapse of the state health system, violence by militia and government soldiers and a lack of outside help have raised death rates in Mitwaba territory in northern Katanga to five times levels usually found in Africa, the relief workers say.

Mitwaba's predicament is similar to that of much of Congo, where, two years after a peace deal was signed, war-related hunger and disease continue to kill 1,000 people a day, on top of 3.8 million that have died since the conflict began in 1998.

'The main reason for the dire situation is the gradual collapse of the state health system,' said Doctor Arsene Enyegue, a doctor working with the organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) in Katanga...

The aid agency is also looking after the severely malnourished but can only afford to treat 260 cases per month.

"The main causes of death are malnutrition, malaria and acute respiratory infections -- all easily treated in normal circumstances," Enyegue said. "But here in Mitwaba we have a mortality rate that is four or five times higher than the accepted level in developing African countries."

The International Rescue Committee, a U.S.-based medical charity, established the figure of 3.8 million deaths in the war by surveying 19,500 households in Democratic Republic of Congo.

It found almost half of those who died were children under five and 98 percent of people were killed by disease and malnutrition rather than guns or machetes.

Countless civilians flee attacks in Katanga and do not make it to camps, abandoning their charred homes and looted fields.

While on the road, they are often robbed or taxed by the ill-disciplined and poorly paid government soldiers who have been sent to tackle the Mai Mai fighter