Catholic bishops in Ireland are providing financial support to victims of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volcanic eruption.
The bishops’ overseas development agency Trócaire has facilitated the procurement and distribution of food to refugees seeking shelter in Rwanda after the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on the edge of the eastern city of Goma in the DRC.
Around 400,000 people fled Goma following last month’s eruption, which killed more than 30 people and destroyed 500 houses. Fears of a fresh volcanic eruption saw people in their thousands fleeing into neighbouring Rwanda. Although the DRC government has called for a “phased return” of the displaced people, about 245,000 remain displaced, according to a recent survey by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
In a 22 June report, Trócaire officials say the sum of 20,000 euros is being used by their local partner, Caritas Nyundo, to distribute food to vulnerable families and in aiding Rwanda's Ministry of Emergency Management in its emergency and recovery support to the affected populations.
Meanwhile DRC’s Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo has called on the country’s bishops to find ways to protect the Congo Basin, at a conference last week on the environment.
“To commit ourselves as Bishops to the protection and safeguarding of our common home is a mark of our communion with the Holy Father and with each other,” he said at the week-long event held in the capital,Kinshasa.
Cardinal Ambongo continued, saying it is vital that the bishops remain united with each other in mobilising the people of God “entrusted to us” to protect the world’s second largest river basin.
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