Anyone been to Congo?

st1903

I've a business trip coming up in the next month or so to Congo. Not sure if it'll be Porte Noire or Brazzaville yet but just wondering if anyone has been to either city and wondering if they're safe enough? Or if there's anything to see or do if there's time? Any info on them appreciated.

Thanks.

Miaireland

I assume you have looked up the Department of Foreign Affairs website. They advised against all non essential travel. This seems to be there second highest level of travel alert other than do not travel.

scudzilla

Speak to your HR department, they should have all the facts for you before you go.

We have people travelling to Africa all the time and our security infrastructure for them is second to none

st1903

Yeah I had look at the department of foreign affairs and saw they were advising against all unnecessary travel. But also saw the UK foreign office were only advising against travel to two regions.
I read an article on the BBC website which seemed to say Congo was safe and just often confused with Democratic Republic of Congo which does seem to have a lot of trouble going on. Alot of the other pieces I've googled have been saying the same thing.
But I keep coming back to the Foreign Affairs advisory against travel so wondering if anyone knows how up to date they keep those things?

Fratton Fred

Are you off to get some turf?

sarkozy

Yes, it's important to make a distinction between Congo and DR Congo, large parts of the latter being a conflict zone.

As with any west African country, visiting comes with various warnings and, depending on your reason for travelling, there are usually ways of doing so in a safe way, provided you heed advice and remain within urban/safe areas.

And, as with any travel to such countries, always consult various embassies' travel advisories; each will have their own flavour depending on how that country's citizens are perceived internationally, e.g. I've found US websites to be overly cautious and UK websites more realistic, with Irish websites rowing in behind the latter. It's also worth checking out French website (easy now with Google translate), which tend to have more of a presence in west Africa.

It's also worth confirming, in the event of an incident, which embassy you should contact. As an Irish and EU citizen, in countries without an Irish embassy, you should in the first instance go to the EU delegation.

Meathlass

If you want to do some background reading I loved Blood River by Tim Butcher