Email 
Print 
Waiting for peace in Congo
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
Cecilie and Jean Claude who live in a village in Rugari, Congo.
Caritas/Peter Risholm
Caritas/Peter Risholm
Peter Risholm is an Information Officer for Caritas Norway. In March 2009 he went to Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with Darya Rekdal, Caritas Norway's Relief Emergency Coordinator, to follow up on projects and gather information. During my recent trip to Congo, I went to a small village in Rugari, North Kivu with Darya, the Emergency Relief Coordinator for Caritas Norway. Until a couple of months ago this area was controlled by rebels. There I met 22 year old Cecilie, who had fled from the rebels with her husband Jean Claude - like so many others. When I asked her about life in the refugee camp, she replied that she was just happy she was not in the camp in Rutshuru were the rebels went on a killing spree and slaughtered 150 of the internally displaced people (IDPs) back in November. During the attack, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo (MONUC) did nothing. When the forces had been driven back and Cecilie could return to her house, she found that it had gone. She now lives in a small hut. "At least we are alive", she says. Today Cecilie gets help from Caritas. Mugunga 1 The next day we went to the biggest refugee camp in Goma, called "Mugunga 1". The camp was established in 2006 and 27,000 IDPs live here. Most of them come from Masisi, a rebel-controlled area. The camp is very organised, and the refugees themselves participate in committees to organise the work. Caritas distributes food for the World Food Programme (WFP). Of all the food that is distributed for WFP, Caritas distributes the most. Three trucks with food, oil and salt drove into the camp on the morning we were there. The line of people just goes on and on. There are a lot of people, but it strikes me how few elderly people there are here. Darya tells me the average life expectancy is just 46 years. The first stop for the people in line is registration. There they get food coupons depending on how big their family is. Then it starts to rain, suddenly there are lots of umbrellas in different colors. Then the refugees get salt, oil and corn flour. I notice the presence of many different organisations. It's a good thing they're able to cooperate so well in such a big crisis like this. Despite having such a harsh life, there are a lot of smiling and friendly faces. They wonder who I am, they want their picture taken, they want to see their picture, and then they laugh. They keep their spirits up. The sewing studio In a sewing studio run by Caritas we meet a group of women who are victims of sexual violence. The treatment in this project is holistic. They get medical treatment and psychological counselling, as well help with social reintegration and becoming financially independent. On the day I'm there, the sewing studio has 32 participants. Some of them are IDPs from the region, others are from Goma and the surrounding areas. They sew and sell clothes, and are given the opportunity to help themselves. Their customers and the local community do not know they are victims of sexual violence, which is important because it is so stigmatised here. After the training they receive a sewing machine, thread and fabric to help them continue their work. Lakeisha & Marjani One of the women at the sewing studio tells me her story*. Lakeisha is 52 years old, has four children and comes from Masisi. She is an IDP and was on her way to Goma when she and her daughter were raped by men in military uniforms. When they were finished they left them by the side of the road. The mother and daughter had no other choice than to pick up their things and continue on to Goma where they found temporary shelter. Later, Lakeisha found her shelter surrounded by men in military uniforms. She was raped a second time, this time by five men, and her daughter by four. The next day they met Caritas staff who took them to get treatment. Caritas and the Catholic Church provide around 40 percent of the health services in Goma and in Congo. Lakeisha's daughter has suffered severe trauma after the incidents, but now attends a Caritas-run school. Lakeisha receives training and wants to continue sewing. She wants to be able to send her other children to school as well. The extensive sexual violence in Congo is a direct result of the conflict. Most of the rapes, around 80 percent, are carried out by men with guns in uniforms. The remaining 20 percent are carried out by civilian men who exploit the insecure situation that women find themselves in. This happened to Marjani. She is 15 and is from an area close to Goma. Last year her father sent her out in the fields to work. She was picking fruit when she was surrounded by three men in civilian clothing. At the age of 14 she was raped by them. Caritas was contacted to help her. She received treatment at a Caritas-run hospital, and she now also attends a Caritas-run school. *Lakeisha and Marjani's names have been changed in order to protect their identities. To see pictures of the people that Peter met on his trip, have a look at these two photo galleries on AlertNet:
Photos DRC: Life in North-Kivu 1
Photos DRC: Life in North-Kivu 2 This blog first appeared on the Caritas Internationalis blog site.
Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.
We welcome argument but AlertNet will not publish comments that are racist, abusive or libellous.
1 response to “Waiting for peace in Congo”
Please note that comments should not be regarded as the views of Reuters.
Leave a Reply
When you submit a comment to us we request your name, e-mail address and optionally a link to a website. Please note where you submit a website address, we may link to it via your name. By sending us a comment, you accept that we have the right to show the comment and your name to users. Although we require your email address, this will not be published on the site, and is only required to enable us to check facts with you, e.g. if you are making a claim we can not confirm easily. Additionally, if you would like your comment removed at anytime, you'll have to use this e-mail address when you contact us. To remove a comment at any time please e-mail us at blogs-(at)-reuters-(dot)-com (address obscured to avoid spam) specifying who you are and what you would like removed. We moderate all comments and will publish everything that advances the post directly or with relevant tangential information. We reserve the right to edit comments in order to maintain the quality of the comments, and may not include links to irrelevant material. We try not to publish comments that we think are offensive or appear to pass you off as another person, and we will be conservative if comments may be considered libelous. Reuters will use your data in accordance with Reuters privacy policy. Reuters Group is primarily responsible for managing your data. As Reuters is a global company your data will be transferred and available internationally, including in countries which do not have privacy laws but Reuters seeks to comply with its privacy policy.
All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content in this article, including by framing or by similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
01 Apr 2009 16:59:03 GMT
DRC is one of several other countries that are torne with complex crisis, renewed conflicts, failing government systems. The causes that lay under these complex humanitarian conditions are often of the same nature but they may differe in their dynamics. If we look around; DRC, CAR, Somalia, Darfur, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Occupied Palestine and others....there are all face social, economic, political injustice. Looking deeper into each of them, you will find local, regional and international forces and factors driving these conflicts. These places have been overstudied and analysed and we all know the root causes, though aid agencies attempt to address them; they still face several internal and external constraints that limit their ability to address these causes. - In eastern DRC and CAR- the conflict is very much driven by elements that try to control and make use of the natural resources; external entities including neghbouring governmnets and international firms are there expoiting the ethnic divisions to ultimately exploit these resources cheaply. - In Palestine, no one can deny the multidimension of this conflict. Many refer to religius background as a pretext to justify the unjustifiable. While we all know that it is all about international politics, economies and resources of middle east region, strategic geographic location. This is in addition to national entities, individual right of refugees, right to water resources and human dignity of people denied their freedom in every aspect of their life. Consequently, they have been turned to aid dependents. Palestinians have a highly educated youth, active private sector, and a good practice of democracy if they have been left alone. However, aid agencies and donors are willing to oay the price of occupation, pay for unnecessary aid if local economy was given a chance to function. The international community is willing to address root cuases, rather thet are taking responsibility of providing basic needs which are supposed to be provided by the occypying force accordin! g to international law. - In many other places where corrupt government are empoverishing their own people and expoiting national resources for the benefit of the elite, abusing all rights of their citizins, international community is there to fill and attend the humanitarian needs and take responsibility instead of putting pressure on the governments to be responsible. - In darfur; aid agencies and donors took clear side against the Sudan government and blamed it for all atrocities in Darfur. Rebbel movements felt that they have all support (may be mistakengly)so they never open doors to a true peace talks, eventually we did harm than benefit to the Darfurians.
With all the talk about right based appraoches; we are still limbing and being confused. Aid agencies either adhere to their principles and codes of conduct or withdraw without creating more harm than benefit by perpetuating root causes of conflict or creating new more.