Caught in the Crossfire: Photos from Congo
30 April 2010
![](/typo3temp/pics/f39bfd640b.jpg "Ruti Riziki, 30, arrived in Mungote camp after fleeing her village of Bukala, a day's walk away. Government troops moved into Bukala only to be met by the rebels. "Many people were killed in the crossfire," Ruti says. "I saw dead bodies in the street. I saw men with guns looting houses and then walking away with everything, even mattresses. The only thing I managed to bring with me was a frying pan."")
![](/typo3temp/pics/51d4f714e7.jpg "Over 30,000 people live in Mungote camp. "The scale of the suffering is massive," says Danielle de Knocke van der Meulen, who runs the IRC office in Goma, North Kivu's main city. "The military offensive has scattered the rebel FDLR force into smaller groups, making ever larger areas of North and South Kivu more insecure."")
![](/typo3temp/pics/b75c6a5bde.jpg "Some 900,000 people have fled the fighting in eastern Congo over the past year. "People arrive here every week," said Moses Bwakere Mulihano, an elder in the North Kivu's Muhanga camp. "Last week 150 people came." This man is building a home from straw and tree branches which he gathered in the bush.")
![](/typo3temp/pics/5aa6837923.jpg "School children, especially the older ones, have trouble concentrating, according to Kwabo Luendo, a teacher in one of the schools. "Most families have been forced to flee several times and the children are stressed and traumatised," he says.")
![](/typo3temp/pics/954190dfa0.jpg "Noela M'Nagashenyi, 33, lost her baby after she was forced to give birth in the bush, far from a clinic or medical care. "There was no one to help. My friends didn't know how to deliver a baby. It was very painful. In the end I lost the baby. It was a boy. He was buried under a tree." Noela almost died from blood loss before she was brought to a hospital on a makeshift stretcher. Shortly after her ordeal, Noela became pregnant again and gave birth to a healthy girl, Jolie.")
![](/uploads/pics/Photo_12_-_Peter_Biro.jpg "A brutal and distinguishing characteristic of the conflict in Congo is rape and sexual violence. Julie (not her real name) and her husband were lying in bed in their small village when eight armed men burst into their house wielding machetes and automatic rifles. "They went to my husband first," Julie recalls. "They cut open his stomach with a machete and he fell over in agony, bleeding. Then two of the men raped me. When I tried to resist, they cut my arms with the blade. When they finally left, they took our goat and our chicken."")
![](/typo3temp/pics/37fb238933.jpg "As many as 80 per cent of the rapes committed in eastern Congo are believed to be carried out by members of armed militias or the regular Congolese armed forces, according to Sarah Mosely, the coordinator of IRC programmes that help survivors of sexual violence. "Women and girls bear the brunt of the fighting here," she says. "They cannot find safety from violence anywhere: in their homes, while farming, on the road to school or the market, collecting firewood, or in camps for displaced people."")
Click a photo above to view the slideshow and read the captions...
The eastern Democratic Republic of Congo remains one of the most volatile areas in Africa. An ongoing Congolese army military offensive against a rebel group based in eastern Congo, supported by United Nations peacekeeping troops, has so far forced an estimated 900,000 people to flee their homes. A staggering 1.8 million people are believed to be displaced in the region. Most end up in unsanitary and overcrowded camps, unable to work and with little food, clean water or medical care. The International Rescue Committee has been aiding the people of Congo since 1996.
Text and photos by Peter Biro/The IRC
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