WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

Violent conflict erupted in Equateur province, western Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2009, leading to the displacement of 200,000 people and hundreds killed. The conflict has its roots in long-standing economic and political grievances between the Boba and Lobala tribes. Control over the key commercial town of Dongo led to major violence in October 2009, when a Lobala militia attacked the local population, targeting Bobas in particular. Many houses were burned, hundreds massacred, and thousands of people fled their homes as result, including this woman (pictured here) who Refugees International interviewed in February 2010.

Adrine is 24 years old and originally from Katanga province in eastern Congo. She was living in Dongo centre because her husband, a Boba businessman, was working in the port city. Since she originally speaks Swahili, Adrine said it had been quite difficult to adjust to the Lingala-speaking province of Equateur.

When Odjani’s forces attacked during the early morning in late October, Adrine was sleeping with her three sons, one four-year old and two year-old twin boys. Her husband had stepped out to take a bath. Upon hearing the commotion, including shots being fired, she followed the panicked crowds to the Oubangui River next to Dongo centre in order to escape the violence. With her older son running alongside her, she grabbed the smaller twins, each by one arm. But when she hurled herself into a small canoe already taking off from the shore she lost hold of one of the twins and watched helplessly as her son drowned. Adrine was eventually able to reach the Republic of Congo on the opposite side of the river and took refuge with other people fleeing Dongo centre. She did not know the whereabouts of her husband when she fled.

When reports of her husband’s death at the hands of Odjani’s militia reached her a few days later, Adrine decided to take her two remaining sons up the river to Bétou, where many other refugees were seeking shelter and assistance. After spending a few months living in difficult conditions without any food assistance, Adrine decided to cross back into the DRC and set out for the district capital of Gemena, walking with her sons for over 200km.

In Gemena, she has been welcomed in by a Protestant church, which found a host family for her to live with. Although a local non-governmental organization registered Adrine and her children as displaced people in Gemena, at the time of interview, they had not yet received any food assistance or other aid. For the time being, Adrine earns 10 Congolese francs, or roughly one penny, for every five pieces of manioc (cassava) she can peal for her neighbors.

Adrine told Refugees International that like many others from outside Equateur who lived in Dongo centre, she does not want to return there after the violence and massacres she witnessed. Instead she prefers to go back to eastern Congo, where her family lives. She hopes that humanitarian organizations will help her to make the week-long journey to Katanga, but she has no means of contacting her family, since she lost everything she owned, including her family’s phone numbers, when she fled Dongo.