* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Kristalina Georgieva is The Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response of European Commission
I am just back from Brazzaville, where I walked through the ruins of Mpila. This was the densely populated neighbourhood which took the brunt of the massive explosions which rocked the Congolese Republic’s capital on Sunday.
The scenes of devastation were dramatic. Houses had collapsed like decks of cards, destroying everything and everybody within. People were gathering up what personal belongings they could salvage.
“We were taken by surprise, people were in church,” Freddie Bolimba told me. “There are lots of bodies everywhere, trapped in the rubble. Even when there was war, it was never as bad as this.”
Across town at the Central University Hospital doctors and nurses were overwhelmed by the gravely wounded arriving around the clock. I tried to speak to Jeremie Monegu, an eight-year-old with a bad head wound, but she was in too much shock so her cousin Siliki Okamba told me what happened.
“She was in church when the first explosion happened. She got hit by flying debris but she’s lucky to be alive. The house is gone – we will have to go and live with family in another part of Brazzaville.”
The international community is already mobilising to come to the aid of people like Jeremie. We are making two hundred thousand euros immediately available to the Red Cross movement.
I am now continuing my planned visit to humanitarian aid programmes funded by the Commission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Tragic and unforeseen events across the Congo River meant I had to truncate my day of meetings in Kinshasa. But it’s another illustration of the fragility of our world, where disasters – in this case man-made because of human error at a military base – can all too often happen without warning and overwhelm us.
My thoughts are with the people of Brazzaville, especially those who are suffering the pain of losing loved ones.
VIDEO: http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/player.cfm?ref=83766
