Patients' Congo jungle trek to safety

Hospitals are under pressure because of the fighting

By Mark Doyle BBC World Affairs Correspondent

Christian missionaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo have led some 900 hospital patients and staff to safety after a week-long trek through the jungle to escape tribal fighting.

Up to 1,000 people were killed in the fighting

The perilous journey, mainly by foot, began after an attack in early September on one of the main hospitals in eastern Congo, in the village of Nyankunde near the border with Uganda.

Ethnic Lendu fighters were searching for the rival Hema militia, who had established positions in the area.

Missionaries, who have only now reached safety to give details, say that up to 1,000 people were killed in the fighting.

The killings illustrate the dangerous security vaccum developing in Congo - a country the size of western Europe - as foreign armies withdraw under a peace plan, leaving only a very thin United Nations observer presence.

Missionaries in touch with the column of fleeing patients and staff, said the hospital complex at Nyankunde was evacuated after ethnic Lendu fighters descended on it with cutlasses and spears looking for Hema militia allegedly hiding there.

Hospital looted

Patients, doctors and children were killed.

Foreign troops have begun pulling out

After the hospital was thoroughly looted, missionaries decided to risk a walk to safety through hostile jungle terrain.

Remarkably, most of the hospital staff and patients who survived the massacre also survived the trek.

A senior Congolese missionary who led the walk to safety said the fighting at the hospital illustrated the culture of extreme violence among antagonistic tribes in eastern Congo which had been exacerbated by the political crisis in the country.

Ironically, the hospital massacre seems to have been prompted by an international peace plan that includes a pull-out of regional armies backing various factions in the Congo war.

The attack on the hospital followed the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from the area.

When the Ugandans left, the hospital missionaries asked the small UN observer force for protection, but were told it did not have the means to help.

While the withdrawal of foreign armies has been welcomed by peace negotiators, there is now a danger of a power vaccuum developing.

The Congolese missionary who led the patients and staff to safety said that, unless this issue was resolved, the tribal hatred in eastern Congo - which he said had already reached unimaginable depths - could spiral out of all control.