ACT Photo Essay

DRC 01/06

The return has begun

Text by Hannu Pesonen I Photos by Martti Lintunen

Sitting in front of his newly built mud-brick house in Batiambale, Jean Lunda is still cautious. He has recently returned from the thick jungle surrounding the Kisangani area in Eastern Congo, where he hid for more than four years, trying to escape the everyday horrors of the war in DRC.

"We lived like wild animals,” he says, touching his empty trouser leg.

The war in DRC has cost him his wife, his home and his right leg.

Lunda went into hiding when his home village was caught in the crossfire of fighting Rwandan and Ugandan troops. Soldiers raided his house and became irritated when they couldn’t find any money, and then grabbed his wife.

“I tried to stop them. They took me behind the hut and shot my leg several times. I haven’t seen her ever since.”

His leg was amputated later as the wounds became infected.

“There were no chances for proper treatment. The hospital was shelled and burnt down, and I was rescued to the forest in a wheelbarrow by relatives.”

The jungle provided shelter for Lunda and his four children for four years. The displaced lived in makeshift grass huts and ate wild fruits and roots, too afraid to cultivate anything.

“The fields would have given us away. And we moved constantly from place to place. The children suffered a lot. Many died.”

Lunda managed to keep his four children alive – a major achievement in the harsh life of the bush. He has received a house from the Lutheran World Federation-supported program which tries to ensure that the returning families will have at least basic means to settle down and resume their activities. He plans to start work as a self-employed carpenter as soon as he gets some tools. Life is beginning anew.

“I can work on wood even with one leg. But I will never get my wife back.”

The fate of Lunda’s family is shared by all too many Congolese. According to the United Nations, approximately four million people have died in the war in DRC and its aftermath since 1996 when the hostilities began. The crisis has claimed more human lives than any other armed conflict after World War II.

Hunger, exhaustion, wounds and diseases claimed many victims. These challenges could have been dealt with under peace, but not in the forests or destroyed villages. Even now, four years after the peace agreement, more than 30,000 people are claimed to die unnecessarily every month.

As a consequence, the life expectancy has dropped to 42 years.

There are barely any social services left in the rural areas of Eastern Congo. Elderly people and expectant mothers have no access to health centers. Children’s diseases and vaccinations cannot be attended to. There is a constant lack of pure drinking water and electricity. Chances of employment are rare.

Where there is too little of anything else, there is too much of one thing: time.

Almost four million Congolese have left their homes due to the conflict. Many of them have wandered, displaced, around the country and will ultimately have to settle down far away from their original home regions. They lack almost everything: food, shelter, plots to dig, clothing, pots and kettles, seeds and tools.

In Batiambale, many displaced people have received the news of the emerging peace process by radio. Radio is still the most important source of information for the returning people in Eastern Congo. Most of the inhabitants here are ready to flee quickly if the security situation shows even slightest signs of deterioration. Some villagers are still hiding and occasionally visit the villages to check if it is finally safe enough to come out from the forests.

The reasons for caution are all too obvious. In line with the peace agreement of 2002, the foreign troops have withdrawn from the region, but a wide assortment of trigger-happy ragtag armies still pillage the region. The estimated 15,000 rebels and militiamen in Eastern Congo keep large areas in a virtual state of war. Poorly paid and maintained, they live off the country. Village raids, killings, armed skirmishes and rape are commonplace.

Brassage, the government’s program to unite the different armed factions into a national army and demobilize the majority of the soldiers, is still at the halfway point. So far, most attempts have increased, not reduced, the tension and confrontations in the area.

For the few humanitarian aid organizations operating in Eastern Congo, the situation presents enormous challenges. As people return to their homes in one district, they may be fleeing renewed hostilities in the neighboring one. In many areas, the international organizations must resort to only protecting civilians and distributing emergency food supplies.

However, the return and reconstruction is beginning in many places in earnest. The ultimate success of the resettlement depends on how the returnees are being supported at this crucial stage.

Lush and green as they may look, war-ravaged places such as Batiambale have been devoid of almost any serious planting activities for years.

As the first proper harvest is still a few months away, malnourishment is widespread. Children resort to the daily rations provided by the newly established feeding centers for returnees, supported by the the Lutheran World Federation and run by the local church agencies.

In Batiambale, the feeding centers try to obtain as many ingredients locally as possible. The pot is filled with smoked fish from the nearby Congo River, palm oil and vegetables. Even nutritious caterpillar worms are used.

The families of malnourished children receive sugar, cooking oil, maize flour and other basic food stuffs.

Children are beginning to receive vaccinations at a health post which was set up with LWF assistance. As their families have been on the run for years, most children don’t have any basic protection against common diseases – another war-related handicap which contributes to the extremely high child mortality rate (213 children out of 1000 - or one out of five - die before their fifth birthday) .

New cereals and plants are being introduced as well. Without the daily meal of the feeding center, people in Batiambale would eat only cassava porridge, supplemented by cassava leaves. Cassava, or manioc, is a staple in Africa’s crisis and catastrophe areas. It is favored by farmers living in precarious conditions, as the cassava root will grow even when the fields are burned or destroyed, or when the fields suffer from drought.

”But it only fills the stomach without providing proper nourishment. We try to change the old cultivation habits by distributing maize, rice and vegetable seeds as well as farming tools to the settlers. In order to channel the new ideas to young farmers, we set up vegetable gardens into the schools as soon as they reopen,” says Dr. Lobo Muhigirwa, who surveys the LWF emergency assistance program in Kisangani area.

Despite uncertainty, the will to resettle is strong in Batiambale. In his new plot provided by the LWF program, Andre Chomba clears room for new plants to be grown beside the traditional cassava.

Having lost his wife and four out of his eight children in the war, Chomba confesses to often feeling depressed and insecure.

“But I’m not so much afraid of the soldiers and fighting anymore. I am more worried whether we will have the strength and commitment to rebuild our lives. The children lost so many important years in the bush. Now many youngsters don’t go to the school. Neither do they work. They just loiter.”

Proudly showing his new election card – his only official proof of identity – Andre Chomba is ready to take part in the major engagement in the DRC’s road to stability: turning the country of 56 million people into a democracy.

For the first time in 40 years, people will be able to vote in free and open elections. According to the peace agreement, the transitional government, a combination of all main political forces, is entitled to steer the country towards multi-party presidential and parliamentary elections. Postponed twice, the elections are due to be held before July 2006.

In the recent past, there has been very little in the Congo to encourage citizens to respect officials, politicians or the government. Yet Andre Chomba, like others in Batiambale, is eager to give the current government a fair chance.

”I’m not so sure what the constitution or referendum is all about. But I want change and stability," he says, expressing the view of most people in Batiambale.

The first test of democracy, a referendum on the new, post-war constitution, was held in December 2005. In most rural areas there was little, if any, information or explanation of the contents of the constitution, but the voting proceeded without any major incidents or turmoil, the voters overwhelmingly giving the government the mandate to pursue its aims.

The visible presence of the UN peace-keeping force, MUNOC, contributes to the increased hopes of stability. With 16,000 troops in a country covering an area of the size of Western Europe, Monuc has a formidable task. In Kisangani, Lt. Col. James Kalipinde from Malawi leads MUNOC’s military observers’ city patrol number 217, stopping here and there to talk with people and to find out their views on the security situation. At the same time, road patrols criss-cross the surrounding rural areas.

To reopen the destroyed schools as soon as possible is a top priority, too, in restoring stability.

”If we leave the children idle, they are easy targets to militias. Being hungry and without any meaningful plan for the future - what is easier than just take a gun?” asks Emile Mpanya, project coordinator for LWF in Congo.

LWF supplies the schools with desks, uniforms and books. The teachers receive bicycles, too.

”That allows the children to study in peace. There is less need to harass the parents constantly for contributions.”

But the schools are in shambles not only because of the war. There is a serious lack of committed and professional teachers. Many schools have been shut up for extended periods because the teachers simply are not available. Poorly and irregularly paid, they take as many side jobs as they can and also frequently go on strike, further reducing the school hours.

In Yangoma fishing village by the Congo River, Achema Selenge (at rear) is determined not to return to his former profession as a teacher. He left his hometown, Isangi, 200 kilometers away, because of the instability and frustration, and settled down here as a fisherman, and now works for boat owner Gerard Bokota (front).

“This was the right choice. I’m not making fortunes, but at least I know that the fish I catch will belong to me. At home, I was hardly ever paid.”

The rehabilitation of Eastern Congo will be a slow process. Large areas are still unreachable, without road or phone connections. The instability poses unpredictable risks for sustainable development.

Little by little, signs of everyday life are appearing in Batiambale. The trust takes time to build up, but the process has clearly started. Small shops are opening, people don’t run immediately away at the sound of a nearing car, and barbers and carpenters have began to ply their trades at the roadside.

The wheels have started turning.

Hannu Pesonen is a Finnish journalist, focusing on development issues and war and crisis and catastrophe reporting around the world. His reporting tours have taken him to more than 120 countries since late 1979, including more than 50 war-zone, crisis and catastrophe assignments. His articles have been published in more than 20 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America and Australia, and he is author of four books.

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