Civilians bear the brunt of the war in Congo

GENEVA, October 24: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said its local workers in the Congo Republic were finding about 50 bodies a day of victims of the fighting in the country’s two main cities.

A spokesman yesterday said the bodies, mainly civilians, were being removed by Congolese Red Cross staff from the streets of the political capital Brazzaville and the economic capital Pointe Noire.

Congo’s former military ruler, Denis Sassou Nguesso, arrived in Brazzaville yesterday, after winning a four-month civil war. The ICRC spokesman said the Swiss-run body, which pulled all but one of its international staff out of Congo had now flown teams in again. Five staffers had gone to Brazzaville with medical supplies and five to Pointe Noire, where one had remained throughout the fighting.