United Nations Children's Fund (New York)
Sarah Crowe
24 September 2007
press release
Goma — She was just 16 years old but already in her final weeks of pregnancy when Pascaline's hometown, the pretty lakeside town of Sake, erupted in fighting. The hills around Lake Kivu crackled with the sound of gunfire and RPGs as Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda tried to take the strategic town from Congolese government forces (FARDC).
The only way out was to head for Goma, on the foothills of the still active Nyiragongo Volcano, just 20 kms away. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, Pascaline and ten members of her family fled on foot. They were not alone -- thousands from all around the Masisi territory had the same idea. On some days between 5–16 September up to 20,000 people were fleeing to Goma.
The UN Forces in DRC, MONUC had their main North Kivu base there. People knew aid organizations were there too. Goma was safe, they knew that was where they would get help.
But babies don't choose their time well. Just as her family was reaching the outskirts of the town, Pascaline went into labour. She made for a health clinic; after a couple of hours and a few stitches, she gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl and called her Nadine.
Then, as luck would have it, the rainy season began in full force and the family had to seek shelter urgently. That was when Josephine Ndalemwa, 33, spotted them. Her small wooden home was already full with seven of her own family, but she couldn't turn Pascaline's family away.
"I saw them searching for shelter at night time in the rain and the young mother and her tiny baby were completely soaked through. The baby's umbilical cord had not yet been cut and she was wrapped in a pagne, a cotton cloth," said Josephine Ndalemwa, 33, head of the host family.
"I just felt really sorry for them and took them in."
Josephine is one of many host families in North Kivu who have opened their hearts and their homes to the displaced despite having no family or ethnic links with the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced by recent fighting.
For most, though, shelter is banana leaves and plastic sheeting that look more like haystacks than homes.
So far UNICEF and partners, Solidarites, have assisted 120,000 displaced in the last three weeks. Teams of NGO workers spray the sides of drying banana leaves to make sure no one is left out; basic shelter of plastic sheeting and blankets, cooking utensils and insecticide-treated bed nets are given out; thousands of children have been immunized against measles, pregnant women against neo-natal tetanus. Latrines and water bladders have kept water borne diseases down to a minimum.
War has hampered humanitarian operations and there could be as many as 300,000 people in need. Displaced and destitute walk for days to get to safe camps in Muganga outside Goma. Many are left exposed to the elements, shaping whatever bush and branches they can into makeshift homes.
The main victims of this renewed fighting are children. At a hospital in Goma a boy of about 15 lies in agony; his leg shot to smithereens as he was walking out of his home in Kichanga. If he had not been brought to Goma by an NGO worker with Heal Africa, his leg would have been amputated It will be six months before he walks again.
But the main thing on the minds of the NGO Heal Africa, Unicef's partner, is to get help out to rape survivors. An upsurge of fighting here brings an upsurge of rape cases. Several times a week a mobile clinic kitted out with anti-biotics and rape survival kits heads out to volatile areas where women are most vulnerable.
Renewed fighting also means children can be re-recruited into armed forces. At a transit centre outside Goma, boys who were once fighters are now kicking footballs around, feeding rabbits, cleaning their cages and caring for the fluffy creatures while being cared for themselves.
Celestin, 13, joined up with the Mayi Mayi rebels in July because his parents couldn't afford to keep him at school. He can't play football at the moment so he hobbles along towards the rabbit cages. He too had been shot in his leg, caught in the crossfire between two rebel forces in North Kivu. Celestin had just been brought in to the centre the night before by MONUC, the UN forces here.
"There was a lot of fighting between Mayi Mayi and Nkunda's people. And that's when I was shot in my leg here. MONUC found me at that time and that's how I got here," he says."The Mayi Mayi were cruel to us, they would beat us but mostly they just wouldn't feed us. I will never go back I would really like to be a doctor but I don't know how I am going to afford school."
Fears of re-recruitment mean children like Celestin won't be going back to their parents until peace holds.
The battles have left entire ghost towns all around Masisi and Rutshuru, north Kivu. On market day Sake bustles with the blue helmets and white tanks of MONUC and the dark green of FARDC Congolese government forces who are in control of the town now. It's at market places and in schools, even primary schools that both young boys and girls, are recruited by military groups -- the boys as fighters or porters, the girls as cooks or sex slaves.
"We have seen children with all three armed groups -- FDLR, Mayi Mayi and Nkunda's forces and they are continuing to recruit them. Their generals all try and lure children into their forces, to take up arms," said Colonel Chand Saroha, Commanding Officer of MONUC in Sake.
"Sake is safe for people to return to now," says Colonel Chand. "The situation is tense but as long as MONUC are here it is fine for people to come back."
This tenuous peace doesn't mean much for Pascaline's family though. She giggles and shakes her pretty head at the idea of going back to Sake any time soon. She wants to keep baby Nadine well away from there and let her enjoy her new extended family until news of a real regional political solution is found.
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