Reuters AlertNet Lite - CONGO: "We remain marginalised", indigenous people say

Reuters AlertNet Full site

NEWSDESK

CONGO: "We remain marginalised", indigenous people say

26 Aug 2008 14:41:43 GMT
Source: IRIN

Background

• Congo (DR) conflict

OUESSO, 26 August 2008 (IRIN) - Despite government efforts to provide public services to all citizens of the Republic of Congo, indigenous communities (also known as Pygmies) continue to be discriminated against, the community's representatives have said.

"It is difficult; we don't have a health centre, no school, even though we are near the capital," said Jean Dominique Dambo, the leader of the indigenous people in Dzaka, a village near Ouesso, the main town in the Sangha region in northern Congo.

Nationwide, indigenous people are estimated to number 300,000, or 10 percent of the country's population.

Dambo said: "Over there, not far from our village, the people are getting free treated mosquito nets and other goods while we are not informed about it; I am sure they forgot about us."

He said recent health campaigns by the government targeting mothers and children in Ouesso excluded the indigenous people in the area.

"When we are sick, we use herbs; in complicated cases, we go to the town, sometimes it's too late and some die," Dambo said.

Exclusion from health services has made the community susceptible to various ailments.

"Many diseases, especially HIV cases, are common among these people as they have little access to medical care because of extreme poverty," he said.

Other communities in the Congo, like the dominant Bantus, disparage Pygmies because of their way of life.

"We cannot live with people who do not like us and who make fun of us," Louis Yambi, 27, an indigenous man in Ouesso, said.

In schools, indigenous children are often ridiculed by their peers as being filthy and smelly, Yambi said.

"In my class no one wanted to sit with me," Jean Mobio, 20, said, adding that he had to leave school and move to the forest. "To them, I didn't have the right, I wasn't like them."

Florent Niama, the government's director-general in charge of social affairs, said the protection of these people's rights was a concern to the authorities.

He said the government's recent health campaigns, supported by several UN agencies, were not discriminatory, as all ethnic communities had been targeted.

ai/bn/sr

Email this article Send comments

Emergencies

• Congo (DR) conflict

MORE >>

NGO latest

• Three days in the "Triangle of Death"
MAG - UK

• Three days in the "Triangle of Death"
MAG - UK

• MAG's SALW Global Update - June 2008
MAG - UK

• Democratic Republic of the Congo: Some 40,000 people to receive aid in North Kivu
ICRC - Switzerland

• MAG DRC - June update
MAG - UK

MORE >>

Latest news

• CONGO: "We remain marginalised", indigenous people say

• Angola expels thousands of Congolese before polls

• DRC: Tensions still rife in Ituri despite progress in DDR

• Ivory poachers decimate Congo elephant population

• DRC: Health crisis looms as doctors' strike continues

MORE >>

IRIN news

Breaking stories

CONGO: "We remain marginalised", indigenous people say (1 minute ago)

Angola expels thousands of Congolese before polls (1 minute ago)

AlertNet insight

MEDIAWATCH: Food summit thwarts hope (1 minute ago)

Aid agency news feed

Three days in the "Triangle of Death" (1 minute ago)

Blogs

HAVE YOUR SAY: Can war crimes trials deliver true justice? (1 minute ago)

Maps

Climate hazard hotspots (cumulative) (1 minute ago)