Unicef gets DRC to free street kids
Unicef gets DRC to free street kids
November 21 2006 at 04:28PM
Kinshasa - The United Nations Children’s Fund has persuaded officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo to free 143 street kids rounded up by Kinshasa police after election-related violence, Unicef said Monday.
The children - 33 girls and 110 boys aged between two and 17 - were among about 500 street kids, locally known as "shegues", hauled in by police in the capital in the aftermath of clashes on November 11 near the residence of presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba.
Six of the children, who were freed on Sunday, were handed over to their parents, while the 137 others were sent to shelters run by the ministry of social affairs, according to a Unicef statement.
Hundreds of homeless kids and young adults live on the streets of Kinshasa. UN agencies and the UN mission in the DRC, MONUC, which currently has 17 600 personnel monitoring a three-year post-war electoral process, have repeatedly expressed concern at police crackdowns.
"The family is the best place for a child," Monday’s Unicef statement said, announcing that enquiries would begin to try to reunite the other children with their families and calling on relatives and the community to help out and "take care of children".
The violence near Bemba’s residence broke out when people in the vast central African country were still waiting for the results of a landmark October 29 presidential election that pitted the former rebel leader against incumbent head of state Joseph Kabila.
Riot police intervened on that Sunday when shegues gathered close to Bemba’s quarters, which are guarded by about 1 000 troops loyal to him, and held an election protest at alleged ballot fraud in Kabila’s camp. In the clashes, a soldier and three civilians were killed.
Within days, police rounded up the shegues at the places they usually gather to spend the night. The street youths, like many Kinshasa residents, tend to back Bemba, though he lost the election nationwide to Kabila according to the final official results released last week.
Kinshasa’s city governor, Admiral Baudouin Liwanga, said that 265 of the boys and youths picked up in the police raids had been transferred to a farm training centre in the remote southeastern Katanga province, while about 100 girls and young women will soon be sent to a similar facility east of Kinshasa.
Stephan Blight, the Unicef official responsible for vulnerable children, said the agency’s actions extended only to minors and that he had no details about older people detained by police.
"Unicef reiterates its desire to support the Congolese government in finding lasting solutions to the problem of street children and urges all political players not to involve them in political events that could put their lives and well-being in danger," Monday’s statement said.
On Monday morning, about 100 Bemba supporters gathered outside the Supreme Court in Kinshasa after the ex-rebel and wealthy businessman filed an official suit to contest the result of the election. The demonstrators dispersed without incident when riot police appeared.
Bemba has legally challenged several aspects of the voting process, in which Kabila won 58,05 percent to his 41,95 percent, according to figures released by the Independent Electoral Commission. The final announcement is now down to the Supreme Court, which has seven days to consider Bemba’s suit.
Earlier this month, the MONUC mission protested at what it called "arbitrary arrests" among the shegues and warned the DRC authorities and inhabitants against "a tendency to blame street children for all the problems of insecurity" in Kinshasa. - Sapa-AFP
