DR Congo: “It was total mayhem, one had to run away”

18 November 2008

As fighting in the Kivu provinces are making headlines, the neighbouring district of Haut-Uele is also affected by violence. Rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are terrorising people, looting, burning villages, abducting children and killing adults. An MSF team visited the town of Dungu, which was attacked by the rebels on 1 November, to assess the needs of the population.
Following this visit an MSF team set up an assistance programme for displaced people on 10 November.

M. comes from Bangadi, 125 km from Dungu where he took refuge. He describes the LRA rebels’ brutal attack on his village. Looting, destruction, abductions, murders: nothing is spared to the civilian population.

“Sunday 19 October 2008, it is nearly midnight when the warning bell rings alerting people to the presence of a group of unknown individuals in the village. The LRA’s armed men, coming out of hiding after crossing Napopo, enter Bangadi at night. It is 5 a.m. when the first shots ring out in Bafuka, the area where I live.

A neighbour confirms that it is indeed the LRA. I must move quickly as I must take care of my family and of everything we have too. First I order my children to lie on the ground in the hut. However, as gunfire is getting closer I lead all my family to the forest. My neighbour advises me to save whatever can be saved from the hut, he helps me to do so. We crawl back to the hut for fear of being spotted and manage to take and hide the motorbike, the TV set and our clothing in the banana plantation as bullets are still whistling past us.

In the meantime looting goes on at the Charismatic Renewal Ministry. A student from the Bafuka Institute is shot and dies three hours later. Mr George, a teacher, is also shot and killed. After looting the area and ordering the kidnapped to carry their booty the group moves on to Kumbari, another area of Bangadi. The whole operation has taken a mere 45 minutes.

What can we do now? We have no choice but to flee. They will certainly come back. Sadly, my uncle dies during the attack and I have to bury him before leaving. Therefore I can only evacuate my family by bicycle to Niangara the following day. We arrive in Niangara the day after that and we spend the night at a friend’s house. Finally, we reach Dungu on Saturday. We now stay there without any belonging at the compound of the Wando Institute’s professors.

One of my colleagues who joined us later told me what he saw before fleeing: ‘Near the hospital two shots rang out, two bodies sprawled on the ground, a man and a young man. Heavy gunfire could be heard near the shopping centre, the shops were quickly looted, that’s when Aningotiyo, the agricultural engineer, was riddled with bullets.

When they returned, on Market Avenue, the attackers set our houses on fire. The church and the Augustine nuns’ convent were thoroughly looted. A fleeing man is shot dead not far from the Bangadi primary school. Houses on both sides of Zangaime Road are set alight. According to residents who could see them, the adults and youngsters who had been abducted were weighed down by the looted goods. It was total mayhem, one had to run away.’

I am married and I have 11 children, for me the future is bleak, the schools are closed, my field is behind, in Bangadi. How can I send my children to school and go back to live in Bangadi with such insecurity?”