Former UNICEF Employee Helps Refugees in Democratic Republic of the Congo
Rosa De Burca, former employee of UNICEF (1994-2003). As the Child Protection Officer she traveled with a colleague to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 1997 in an effort to help refugees who had fled inland because of abuses by rebel forces. One colleague took a picture of them before they boarded the plane, thinking he’d never see them alive again. De Burca and her colleague were met by heavily armed rebels when their plane landed but instead of torture or death the rebels took them on the two and half hour walk to the site of the refugees. De Burca and her colleague sat amongst dead bodies as they tended to 12 malnutritioned and dehydrated children. By the end of the trip more than 3,000 children were brought to UNICEF’s base in Goma (DRC).
From a sermon by Dale Pilgrim, Rising to the Challenge, 6/7/2010