MINES AWARENESS TRUST staff were evacuated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo last week after violence broke out in the region. Netsanet Solomon, 23, who represented MAT at an evening at Government House this year, was separated from her two-year-old son, Nathan, on Friday while she was in a United Nations compound in the capital, Kinshasa.

‘There were people running across the town burning cars and attacking the UN, and Netsanet couldn’t get to her child across town,’ said MAT operations director Ben Remfrey.

He was disappointed with the UN’s poor management of the crisis after its military personnel refused to get her son from a carer across town. Their refusal came as she was managing a MAT project for the UN.

‘We are contractually obliged to work with the UN, even when they run away,’ he said.

‘They’ve been putting people on aircraft throughout all this and Netsanet is very low on their list of priorities even though she’s contracted to work with them. She’s down their list with the chickens and the goats. You expect to have some more support, especially when it’s the UN, but, from experience, they seem to be good at looking after themselves.’

The violence erupted last week after the fall of the major town of Bukavu to Rwandan-backed rebels. UN troops reportedly stood by while the rebels rampaged through the town, killing and raping the population.

Hundreds of Congolese demonstrators gathered outside UN headquarters in the capital. Stones were thrown at UN vehicles and one was set on fire.

Its refusal of assistance to Ms Solomon meant that she had to hire a private security company to fetch her son after she was trapped in the UN compound for 32 hours. They have since been reunited.

Mr Remfrey said that he was grateful that the UN finally flew her out on Friday but added that she was given only 10 minutes’ warning before her flight left.

‘She was quite emotional about the whole experience. She’s now relaxing in Uganda and she will now go to the MAT project in the west of the country. Hopefully, they will look after her there.’

Mr Remfrey will see her in Uganda later this week. He heard the news on the way back from a trip to Kosovo.

He said that two other MAT staff working for refugees for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in the south were also caught up in the troubles that engulfed the country. The UN flew them to Tanzania yesterday.

‘They were pretty stressed out because they were stuck in an area that was being attacked by the locals.’

He was critical of the British Embassy’s stance. Two fellow MAT workers are being flown out of Tanzania with help of the Belgian Government.

He said that e-mails to the Foreign Office did not even get a reply.

‘What I think isn’t even printable,’ he said.

Mr Remfrey added that everyone was on standby and his primary concern was for the welfare of his staff. He added that MAT’s continuation of mine risk education in the Congo was dependent on ‘certain conditions’ made by the UN.

‘I’m not having them treat my staff like third-class citizens purely because they’re not UN staff. It’s tough running a foreign NGO [non-governmental organisation]. It’s even tougher when you’ve got a lack of resources. If we had more funds and resources, we could remove people ourselves.’