It’s one of those forgotten conflicts that is rarely talked about: the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in the heart of Africa, has been plagued by war for more than 20 years. The NGO Doctors Without Borders is concerned about the rapid deterioration of the situation.
“It’s a humanitarian disaster” : the words are from Doctors Without Borders (MSF), probably the last NGO that still manages to work in the camps of all belligerents. In the large city of Goma, very close to Rwanda alone, the number of displaced people is approaching 600,000 people. It is necessary to at least double the figure for an estimate in the whole of this region of Kivu: 1.5 million displaced persons.
>> REPORTING. “They came to cut us with machetes”: Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo at war for nearly 30 years
For the most part, these displaced people live in very precarious conditions. There are many women and children. Epidemics of measles and cholera threaten, with many cases already. Latrines are lacking, drinking water too. Insecurity reigns, assaults and rapes are commonplace in these makeshift camps. The European Union has just sent two planes of humanitarian aid to Goma, which is very insufficient. For MSF, the crisis in Kivu is underestimated by the entire international community, whereas it is the worst for 30 years in this region of the Great Lakes. The worst since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
The involvement of neighbours, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda
The conflict indirectly threatens this entire Great Lakes region. Initially, it was an internal civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this country which is the largest French-speaking country in the world by size, four times that of France, with 90 million inhabitants. This civil war has pitted the Congolese regular army against the M23 rebellion for 20 years. An agreement was reached in 2013 but according to the rebels, it was not respected by the Congolese authorities. The fighting therefore resumed.
The M23, now very structured militarily, is progressing on the ground. He is supported by neighboring Rwanda: the latter denies this, but the UN is categorical. Opposite, the Congolese army calls on auxiliaries, local militias, whose abuses are numerous. And also to men from Burundi, the second neighbor of the area. To complicate matters, a movement affiliated with the Islamic State group, the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces), multiply the killings – another 20 dead at the end of last week. This movement is composed, initially in any case, of Muslims from Uganda, the third neighboring country. These clashes therefore have multiple facets: nationalist, ethnic, religious, tribal rivalries. With, in the background, the mastery of the very rich subsoil of this region.
A certain international indifference
In addition to the fact that the toll is beginning to be very heavy, it must therefore be remembered that we are in this region of the Great Lakes which has already experienced the 1994 genocide: 800,000 dead, the vast majority of Tutsis massacred by Hutu extremists . That should be enough to attract attention. Knowing, as a French diplomat pointed out, that the “solution” through “a regional dialogue”. Finally, the last parameter: the relative lack of interest of Westerners in this conflict partly explains the feeling of many Africans of a “double standard” of the West: everything for Ukraine, nothing or almost nothing on the other conflicts, and especially this one, in the DRC.