Rwanda urges ‘urgent global support’ for volcano crisis

Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Friday appealed for urgent global support to manage a crisis on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, as civilians fled another feared eruption of Mount Nyiragongo.
Africa’s most active volcano blew last weekend, spewing rivers of lava that claimed nearly three dozen lives and destroyed around 20,000 homes before it stopped.
“We are having big numbers of people crossing the border. So we are trying to work with the Congolese government to deal with the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding out of that,” Kagame said late Friday.
“We already need urgent, global support to keep on monitoring to know what is going on.”
Around 3,000 people are estimated to have arrived in the Rugerero camp 10 kilometres (six miles) from the border with DR Congo, where just on the other side, Nyiragongo looms over Goma.
Camps have sprung up in other border districts, with trucks bringing refugees from the border and temporary clinics tending to the sick.
Kagame said earthquakes in the aftermath of the eruption had also damaged houses, roads and other infrastructure on his country’s side of the border, and displaced Rwandans too.
The influx has prompted concerns by UNHCR and the Rwandan government about the spread of the coronavirus.
An official from the Rwandan ministry of emergency management said there were currently sufficient supplies of food, water and medicine in the camps, but this could change as more people fled the volcano.

Edited by Olajumoke Adeleke