CRS has two international staff and three national staff in Goma, and they are all fine; Goma city remains relatively calm.

There have been no breakthroughs in the U.N.-brokered peace talks between the Congolese government and rebel forces that opened Monday in Nairobi, Kenya.

Skirmishes and troop movements and population displacement continues in Rutshuru territory north of Goma; Masisi territory west of Goma remains relatively calm.

The CRS/Caritas team completed the non-food item kit registration in Ngungu (southern Masisi territory). The kits are expected to arrive in Goma this Sunday and distribution may begin by late next week.

A CRS staffer is quoted in this NPR story posted Friday, 9.12. Here’s a quote from the story:

“We got rice, bread, peanut butter, beans,” says Bill Canny, the country representative for Catholic Relief Services. “So it’s a packet to sustain a family of five for 15 days. We have trouble getting these to Gonaives — the roads have been closed. But there are plenty of places affected and we are getting it to other parts of the country that are equally suffering from the effects of the hurricanes.”

The NPR story also notes: “Catholic Relief Services first came to Haiti in response to Hurricane Hazel in 1954. It has grown into one of the largest aid agencies in the country.”

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We received this update today from Anne Toussaint Protection Advisor & Program Development Manager, CRS Haiti

Hanna wasn’t something that we saw coming. It was supposed to be a small storm that was just going to pass by the southern tip of Haiti. But it changed direction and lingered for several days. Many of my colleagues were caught in the field, caught in the flooding of Gonaives.

CRS staff in Haiti ready bags of peas as part of food supplies they’ll distribute to Haitians displaced by recent storms. Photo by Alix Innocent/CRS

In Haiti the streets are not closed like they are in the States. There are big potholes, open sewers. When the streets are completely flooded, and you’re tying to wade through the water, you can fall into these holes, or be taken away by the current.

I was fortunate that I got to wait out the storm from the safety of Port-au-Prince. It felt like a stormy day in the U.S. I had no idea how bad it was in the rest of the country until I started getting reports from the field. The things my colleagues saw were very graphic, people getting caught in the currents in Gonaives.

My first though was for the safety of women and children. Shelters are overcrowded. People are housed in churches and schools, neither of which is really equipped to house the number of people in need. With this level of overcrowding women and children become more vulnerable to violent attacks and sexual abuse. There are questions that we have to ask ourselves; are the men and women separated in the shelter? Are the shelters well lit and do they have separate bathroom facilities?

A colleague of mine was in a shelter—in a room with 400 people cramped together: women, men and children, with no access to hygiene. They have a little bit of food with nothing to do. It’s misery.

These questions arise after things die down a bit. It’s hard to do psychosocial work until the shelters are stable, and people have their basic needs met.

Sara A. Fajardo, Catholic Relief Services communications officer-Latin America/Caribbean, wrote this post from an interview with Anne Toussaint.