As fighting in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo is making the headlines, the neighbouring district of Haut-Uele is also affected by violence. Rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are terrorizing people, looting, burning villages, abducting children and killing adults. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) went to the town of Dungu, which was attacked by the rebels on Nov. 1, to assess the needs of the population. An MSF medical team has now been active in Dungu since Nov. 10.

Photo: Dominic Nahr, L'Oeil Public | A tank moves towards the frontlines and people carry their belongings as they flee fighting near Kibuma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

 J. (name withheld) is a carpenter working in the convent in Duru, a village many hours walking distance from Dungu. J.  has a wife and five children and also cares for a young niece. He told a member of the MSF team what happened to his family. His story illustrates the distress suffered by civilians who fall prey to the rebels’ brutality and have to flee their villages.

It all started around 1 p.m. I had just finished cutting a cluster of palm nuts some 250 metres away from the market and the convent and was just about to get back when a child from the village gestured in my direction warning me not to get closer. According to him, the LRA had surrounded the mission and had even abducted children from the secondary classes.

I immediately went home and got the six children and my wife together, as our neighbour was away I took his four children too and we fled to the bush, two kilometres away from the village. There we stayed two days, next to our plot. We could feed on beans and aubergines that I got from our field and that my wife cooked in empty cans as we didn’t have any saucepan.

A boy who had been captured by the LRA but had managed to escape after three days joined us. He said that the LRA had left the village at around 3 a.m. and had crossed the river. Together with our neighbour who had joined us in the bush, we decided to return to the village to see what had happened and also to get some essential utensils. It was quite distressful to see that my entire compound had been burned down: the three small huts, the straw hut, the kitchen and the goats’ shed. Everything had been burned down. My six goats were lying on the ground, shot dead.

 

“My neighbour decided to cross the forest into Sudan with his family”

Overcoming our pain we rapidly cut up a goat and shared it between us. I added the rest of two burnt chickens and carried the lot on my back, returning to our hiding place.

My neighbour decided to cross the forest into Sudan with his family. As for us, as my wife didn’t want to go to this country which she doesn’t know, we decided to go the next day to Dungu where we have relatives.

The next day, a Sunday, we set out for Dungu at around 4 p.m. to get to Kpaika, a village, the same day. When we got to Kpaika my eight-year old son had swollen legs after this long walk, so we decided to rest for the night in the chapel and to leave early the next morning. Around 4 a.m. we were woken up by gunshots and people screaming. We fled — my wife put our youngest daughter on her back and carried our eight-year old son, I grabbed our three-year old son. My wife fell into a hole, so I put the toddler down on the ground to help her get out. That’s when an LRA soldier spotted us and gave chase. I barely managed to get my wife out of the hole and to flee with her. I then realized, too late, that I had left the toddler behind and I could hear him scream, but it was too late, impossible to turn back without risking to get caught, all of us.

 

A miracle

From the forest, where we hid, we tried to get some news. People said that many had been killed in Kpaika. Around 11 a.m. it was completely silent. We then heard the faint noise of leaves being trampled by many people. We approached carefully and saw that the noise was coming from the road, where many people were fleeing. We asked everyone if they had seen a little boy, alone on the road. Eventually, someone told us that he had seen an LRA soldier carrying our son on his back. This news drove us to despair.

My wife and I decided to save the remaining five children by taking them away as quickly as possible, knowing that by doing so we were getting ever further away from the little one. So we joined the flow of fleeing people and arrived in Kiliwa on Tuesday. Then, through some miracle we learned in Kiliwa that our little boy had been freed, that a well-meaning person had taken care of him and was taking him to Dungu.

We spent the night outside under a mango tree on the road side, dehydrated and exhausted, but with a lighter heart when thinking of our son, hoping he might already be on his way. We left Kiliwa at around 4 a.m. and walked all day. We reached Dungu after 6 p.m. We were given refuge by the priests and we have been with them for four days now. We’re waiting for our little one.

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