Seanad debates

Thursday, 30 January 2014

Humanitarian Situation in Syria, South Sudan and Central African Republic: Statements

 

12:20 pm

Photo of Colm BurkeColm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and his separtmental staff for the contribution that they have made to all of these complex issues which are not easy to resolve.

I have sat on the foreign affairs committee and human rights committee in the European Parliament and in 2008 I spent six days in Chad. I visited the refugee camps which included Goz Beïda and Abéché that had 500,000 refugees. One of the sad parts about the mission was that 57,000 people from the Central African Republic were in those refugee camps out of a total of 500,000 people. More than 400 Irish troops were sent to protect those camps but the region created a lot of challenges. The nearest port to the camps was 2,500 km away and the only way for the camps to get food was to bring it through Sudan to the east, Libya to the north or Cameroon to the west. That was not a great choice as regards bringing food across 2,500 km. In March 2008 it was a challenge to bring in 56,000 tonnes of food by June in order to avoid the rainy season when nothing could be moved. Even four-wheel drive vehicles cannot move for four months once the rainy season commences. That is an example of the scale of the challenges faced by the aid agencies and the UN and similar challenges must be faced when dealing with conflicts in the region.

I shall touch on the interesting region of the Central African Republic. Last night I watched a human rights report about a young lady who had been on a truck trying to escape from the capital. She knew that she was not going to escape so before she was ordered off the truck she pleaded with another lady to take her seven month old child and handed over her child. She was then ordered to get off the truck and to go into a mosque where she was, along with a number of other people, hacked to death with machetes. That story highlights how dangerous the situation is in that country. One of the former Rwandan military who is located in the CAR has commented that he is afraid that what happened in Rwanda in 1994 will take place in the CAR. His comment highlights the urgent need to re-enforce the peacekeeping troops who operate in the region.

I welcome the Security Council's decision to approve intervention by the EU force but I not convinced that it will be enough. A determined effort must be made to prevent a repeat of what happened in Rwanda. The way the crisis has developed over the past number of weeks means we are very close to the crisis escalating. Over 1 million people have been displaced in the CAR over the past nine months. That is a huge number of people who have found themselves in very difficult terrain. It is not going to be easy to get aid into the region and the large number of people involved emphasises its importance. The European Union has a population of 500 million and comprises 28 countries. Therefore, we should come on board a lot more and ensure that the crisis does not escalate.

We need to take far more decisive action on another issue - the availability of arms. It is one of the issues that struck me when I visited Chad in 2008 because I did not pass one person who was not carrying a machine gun. It was estimated that over 10,000 young people had machine guns and I refer to people who were under 18 years of age. I pay tribute to Concern as it works in a lot of these areas and operated in Chad refugee camps in 2008. Even the aid agencies in the previous 18 months before I visited Chad had lost 85 four-wheel drive vehicles. When one was stopped on a road by a person carrying a machine gun all one could do was hand over the keys and walk away. Then the roof was cut off each vehicle and equipment added in order to turn them into armoured personnel carriers which was another challenge for the aid agencies.

I thank the Minister of State for the work that he and his Department has done. We must ensure that the crisis in the CAR does not escalate into a second Rwanda.

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