Bukavu, 27 August 2015 — Dr. Mamadou Pethe Diallo, the new Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in charge of humanitarian affairs made his first visit to South Kivu province.

Upon arriving at Kavumu airport on Thursday 27 August, the Deputy Special Representative made a courtesy call to provincial authorities in Bukavu, South-Kivu and visited Panzi hospital.

At the end of the meeting with Dr. Denis Mukwege who provide medical care to raped women and girls in Panzi hospital, the Deputy-Special Representative declared “it is our dearest hope to see that the persons treated in Panzi hospital recover physically and morally and return home.” We are very encouraged to see “Dr. Mukwege and his staff dedicate themselves to treating raped women and children.”

The UN delegation was received by the vice-governor Gabriel Kalonda Mbulu. He then took the opportunity to express his gratitude to the provincial authorities for the “excellent collaboration maintained with MONUSCO-South-Kivu and the whole family of the humanitarian actors and development agencies of the United Nations system operating in the province..”

Dr. Mamadou P. Diallo also discussed the need to come up with a contingency response to the natural disasters in order to minimize their impact when responding to a question asked about the earthquake that hit the South-Kivu province in the small hours of Friday 7 August 2015 referring to the earthquake an “an alarming signal designed to awaken us”.

Appointed on 11 May 2015 by Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, Dr. Mamadou P. Diallo succeeded the former Deputy Special Representative Moustapha Soumaré and inherit all the tasks performed by his predecessor, as resident coordinator, humanitarian coordinator and resident representative of the United Nations Development Program.

Alain Likota