Almost 400,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo have left the city of Goma, located in the eastern part of the country, after the government yesterday ordered its evacuation for fear of a new eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano.
Local authorities said it today.
"Yesterday 80,000 families left the city of Goma, equivalent to about 400,000 inhabitants," reads a report on the emergency meeting held to assess the risks. Most of the displaced people made their way to Sake, about 25 kilometers west of Goma, and to the border with Rwanda in the northeast. Humanitarian aid has been organized to provide water, food and other supplies, while aid workers are working to reunite children separated from their families, the report explains. The evacuation order "will remain in force" until "an eruption on the mountain or below the lake can be ruled out", he adds.
The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had previously estimated that the order, valid for ten of the 18 districts of the city, would have affected almost 400,000 people out of the 600,000 inhabitants of Goma, whose urban area has a population of about 2 million inhabitants. The eruption of the volcano, which took place on Saturday evening, caused the death of 32 people, to which must be added two victims of yesterday in accidents related to the evacuation, as reported by the authorities. The eruption also destroyed between 900 and 2,500 homes, leaving about 20,000 people homeless.