DRC: Conflict in the borderlands

From the town of Bunagana, straddling the Congo-Uganda border in DRC’s restive North Kivu province, the sound of a bomb exploding can be heard from a distant hillside. It is in these lush green hills that ex-CNDP rebels, now organised under the name M23 — le Movement du 23 mars — are engaged in offensives and counter-offenses with the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC).

Less than a week ago, the United Nations Stabilisation Mission for the Congo (MONUSCO) had established a temporary operating base manned by Indian peace-keepers in the town, under their mandate to protect civilians. But just a few hundred metres from their base, hundreds of people are crossing in and out of the porous border with Uganda, seeking refuge from the conflict whilst still returning to Bunagana for water, firewood and their belongings.

The previous week, the town had all but emptied and many doors still remain firmly padlocked shut, but some shops have reopened, and the main thoroughfare appears rather animated. The conflict, though, is disrupting people’s lives; a teacher in Bunagana says that she cannot afford to buy food - her income comes from pupils attending class, and right now, with shells and gunfire ripping through the landscape, there are none.

This afternoon, three hours after the bomb exploded on a hillside, heavy weapons fire ripped through the air in a village in Jomba, seemingly precipitating the heavy downpour that followed it. FARDC jeeps then burst out of the bush, carrying around sixty men as well as a large, truck-mounted automatic gun. The villages lining the route towards Bunagana have emptied, with clothes left unattended on washing lines and more padlocks sealing doors; the jeeps churned up the muddy road that drives straight through them, on their way to the next operation.

Less than a kilometre from where the jeeps emerged from the bush, a large contingent of foot soldiers march down the road, moving positions following the offensive. “Things are going well” said one, the morale of the whole detachment seemingly high.

A text-message partially received from the spokesman of the M23 rebels acknowledged an attack during the morning, but claimed that they had met the attack with a counter-offensive. Right now, it is impossible to assess the veracity of this message, nor their strength: isolated high in the hills, accessing them from Congo means crossing the front-line of the FARDC, something they are somewhat less than willing to allow.

In the meantime, the va-et-vient continues on the border, as people spend the night in neighbouring Uganda, ferrying their belongings in and out of the country. The chef du groupement says that people are living in deplorable conditions, often without food and shelter, and claims that three people have died since leaving their homes. As he sees it, either the army needs to chase out the rebels, or a peace needs to be negotiated. Until then, “it is my people that are the victims.”

Bunagana empties to Uganda

The road approaching Bunagana skirts at times just a few miles from the conflict between Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and mutinous rebels of the M23 movement. Yet populations along that road bustle around the outdoor market selling fruit and vegetables from the lush hillsides. Further up the hill, some are carrying mattresses and their belongings, rather than bowls of bananas.

The town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border is emptying into Uganda; the population has largely fled, locked doors line the main road. Army soldiers are gathering in the towns, and occupy the strategic hilltops above it.

For the residents of Bunagana, it is time to pack up the belongings once again. I was first here a month ago, a few days after clashes between the FARDC and army defectors. Then, according to residents, the battle lasted a few hours, during which the town had emptied into Uganda until things settled down.

The displacement this time seems to be somewhat more enduring and involving populations from neighbouring areas. There has been no fighting in Bunagana in the recent clashes, but the M23 rebels now occupy Runyiony, just a few miles from the border town.

Movement into Uganda ebbs and flows; some coming through the official border crossing, but many through the adjacent bush. Yet people continue to cross back into Congo, carrying the ubiquitous yellow jerry cans to fetch water — “there is no water for them there [in Uganda]” said a border official. And trucks continue to traverse the border from Uganda, ferrying goods through this important supply line. They were trundling over the border shortly after a reported airstrike on an M23 position.

The situation is far from clear.

A new wave of displaced in Congo

Julien Paluku, the Governor of D. R. Congo’s North Kivu province, has been touring the Masisi region yesterday and today, to reassure local populations on the security of their towns. Yesterday in Kuraba and Mushaki, today in Kitshanga, he told people “I would like to fight so that everyone can return home and get back to school”. That fight was brought with a strong contingent of Congolese army, including a truck full of commandos, and heavily armed police, protecting the governor and his delegation.

But whilst Mr. Paluku addressed a large crowd in Kitshanga today, several hours west of Goma, thousands were fleeing the area around Kibumba on the road leading north from Goma towards Rutshuru. Those fleeing Kibumba told me that at around nine o’clock the previous evening, the CNDP had arrived in their town. “They started shooting around midnight” said eighteen year old Bahat Buguru, describing the moment the clashes with the Congolese army started. At seven the following morning, Mr. Buguru and his family started the long walk towards Goma, arriving at Kibati on the provincial capital’s outskirts, eight hours later. “It’s serious”, he says.

By six o’clock this evening, the local administration had registered some six hundred families at a small school in Kibati, and said that they still had many more to log. As dusk fell, people were still arriving in Kibati, with many more still on the road from Kabumba. In the dark on the road to Goma, a trickle of people were headed for the Rwandan border.

The ceasefire between the FARDC and army defectors is due to expire tomorrow, but these clashes appear to have already broken that. Defectors have formed under the banner of the M23 movement, a nod to the date of the 2009 agreement between the government and the CNDP; the infamous Bosco Ntaganda is no longer their head.

In the meantime, a new wave of displaced Congolese will add themselves to over 1.4 million in the Kivus, and some 2 million country-wide.

The Kibumba displaced in Kibati were appealing for help - they have no food, and said that they can’t get to anywhere to obtain it. As gunshots were heard in Goma tonight, the conflict that displaced them sounds far from over.

Congolese Refugees in Rwanda

A week ago, this camp was all but empty. A transit centre for Rwandans returning from years of being refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo, around 450 Rwandans passed through here each month. But since April 28th, the Nkamira transit camp, 15km from Rwanda’s border town of Gisenyi, is now overflowing with more than 5000 Congolese refugees. With clashes between the Congolese army and mutinying soldiers, the UN estimates that around 20,000 people have been displaced.

Straton Kamanzi, the manager of the centre nestled into Rwanda’s hills, said this morning that “there is not enough space for everyone”, as tents and make-shift shelters are assembled on the grass outside his office. “On Tuesday, we expected 5000 refugees would arrive here. But we’ve already passed that, and we could have a lot more.” For those that arrived the previous evening, room could not be found, and so they slept outside in the bitterly cold night. “We hope that we’ll have shelter for them tonight, but for those that arrive today, I don’t think so.”

The refugees here all tell tales of war, of attacks going on around their villages in Massisi district of Congo’s restive North Kivu province. News reports are focusing on the whereabouts of Bosco Ntaganda, a general in the Congolese army indicted by the International Criminal Court. He is held responsible for the defecting soldiers, and is now wanted by the Congolese state as well as the ICC; but he denies any involvement in the mutiny.

Everyone in the camp knows his name, but they are far from unanimous on his involvement in the clashes that have forced them from their homes. Many were fleeing due to looting and lawlessness that has erupted since the conflict.

But now, their more pressing needs are shelter. The Rwandan authorities here, as well as UNHCR, are erecting structures as fast they can, but this is not a refugee camp, and if the problems of North Kivu continue, a more permanent solution will need to be found for the swelling numbers of Congolese.

On Hornets and Health

In the Congolese village of Kiliwa, along the dusty road leading from Dungu, a lone healthcare outpost stands, scarred by fighting, with memories of the Congolese civil war, and of attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army. To get here, one passes a Congolese army checkpoint. The driver remembers when, a year ago, two soldiers were killed here during an attack by the LRA.

Etched into crumbling walls is graffiti, mixing both supplications to God and images of AK-47s, with a red sort of honey oozing out of holes, left by the hornets that buzz around what constitute the wards.

Much of the local population has left Kiliwa, having fled the area due to attacks by the LRA. And for those that remain, there is a feeling that they have been forgotten. Chronic underdevelopment coupled with near-continuous conflict has degraded the state of health centres in most parts of Haut & Bas Uélé, says an NGO working in the area. “Most clinics lack essential equipments and majority of the health professionals are not properly trained.”

When working with NGOs in the region, one often sees the “successes”: the mosquito nets being handed out, immunisations being injected into the arms of young babies, free, primary health care. But here in Kiliwa, one has a brief glimpse of what it is like away from the fleets of white Land-Cruisers.

A nurse, alcohol on his breath, pricks the finger of an elderly lady to test for malaria. In the opposite room, a lady lies on a stained, bare mattress, a dressing on her leg from an infection brought on following treatment in the centre.

A sense of a people forgotten, or ignored, by their government. The ones who stayed behind.

Soon, the Land-Cruisers will be coming, to provide free health care to “the vulnerable”, and to train health professionals. But that can only ever be a short-term fix. It will help some, but the authorities running the country need to remember who they work for.