Kate Thomas
Kate Thomas is a foreign news reporter for the Independent, paying special attention to humanitarian and development stories. She has reported from West Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. Kate has previously worked in the NGO sector in Thailand, Cambodia and the UK, and regularly contributes to travel supplements and guidebooks on developing countries.
Eastern Congo: Looks like heaven, feels like hell
Author: Kate Thomas
The government official spun around in his chair, kicked an empty beer bottle with his heel and stared out of the window. "North Kivu looks like heaven," he said.
I agreed. A sunbird sang and we sat for a moment in silence, lost in the sunset. In the distance, cormorants and cuckoo hawks circled high above the glassy waters of Lake Kivu.
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Author: Kate Thomas
The government official spun around in his chair, kicked an empty beer bottle with his heel and stared out of the window. "North Kivu looks like heaven," he said.
I agreed. A sunbird sang and we sat for a moment in silence, lost in the sunset. In the distance, cormorants and cuckoo hawks circled high above the glassy waters of Lake Kivu.
...
Losing everything in Congo's violent North Kivu
Author: Kate Thomas
The only thing Manga Mutaka thought he would lose at the Mugunga camp for internally displaced people was his eyesight. In the end, he lost everything.
Mutaka and his family are Twa, or Pygmies, from the volatile Ngongo region of North Kivu province in war-torn eastern Congo. When they tired of a life on the run from escalating rebel clashes, they gave in and came to Mugunga, a camp that houses nearly 30,000 people, 15 km (9 miles) from North Kivu's capital Goma.
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Author: Kate Thomas
The only thing Manga Mutaka thought he would lose at the Mugunga camp for internally displaced people was his eyesight. In the end, he lost everything.
Mutaka and his family are Twa, or Pygmies, from the volatile Ngongo region of North Kivu province in war-torn eastern Congo. When they tired of a life on the run from escalating rebel clashes, they gave in and came to Mugunga, a camp that houses nearly 30,000 people, 15 km (9 miles) from North Kivu's capital Goma.
...
Indignity and despair in Liberia's biggest prison
Author: Kate Thomas
When Richard Lovelace penned the 17th century love poem that begins "Stone walls do not a prison make", he obviously hadn't been to Liberia's most overcrowded jail.
For at Monrovia Central Prison there is little else but crumbling stone walls, rusty iron bars and the stench of rotting dignity.
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Author: Kate Thomas
When Richard Lovelace penned the 17th century love poem that begins "Stone walls do not a prison make", he obviously hadn't been to Liberia's most overcrowded jail.
For at Monrovia Central Prison there is little else but crumbling stone walls, rusty iron bars and the stench of rotting dignity.
...
Conditions grim in Sierra Leones diamond mines
Author: Kate Thomas
It could have been a scene from a movie. Another long, hot day was coming to an end and the African sun was sinking into the dusty red earth. As the blue sky blushed, he knelt in front of me and held out a sparkling rock. But this was no proposal. And if it were a movie it could only have been Blood Diamond.
Last year the Hollywood blockbuster brought the story of Sierra Leone's brutal diamond-fuelled war to the silver screen. The conflict ended in 2001 and since then the recovering West African nation has made great strides in combating illegal exports of blood diamonds.
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Author: Kate Thomas
It could have been a scene from a movie. Another long, hot day was coming to an end and the African sun was sinking into the dusty red earth. As the blue sky blushed, he knelt in front of me and held out a sparkling rock. But this was no proposal. And if it were a movie it could only have been Blood Diamond.
Last year the Hollywood blockbuster brought the story of Sierra Leone's brutal diamond-fuelled war to the silver screen. The conflict ended in 2001 and since then the recovering West African nation has made great strides in combating illegal exports of blood diamonds.
...
Liberia's child soldiers take up arms again - for the movies
Author: Kate Thomas
Samuel Zezey is patrolling the oldest bridge in Monrovia. He has an AK-47 slung over his shoulder but he's wearing a baby blue tracksuit with a picture of a teddy bear on it. He's 17 years old.
As I walk up to him he greets me with a cheeky smile and shakes my hand the Liberian way, clicking his fingers against mine as he pulls away. "Over there," he says, pointing at a beach coated in rubbish. "That's where I killed my uncle."
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Next entries
Author: Kate Thomas
Samuel Zezey is patrolling the oldest bridge in Monrovia. He has an AK-47 slung over his shoulder but he's wearing a baby blue tracksuit with a picture of a teddy bear on it. He's 17 years old.
As I walk up to him he greets me with a cheeky smile and shakes my hand the Liberian way, clicking his fingers against mine as he pulls away. "Over there," he says, pointing at a beach coated in rubbish. "That's where I killed my uncle."
...
