Great Lakes Region

"Since December, terror has seized hold of the beautiful land of the Uele, until that point spared by Congo’s warfare. The FARDC (Congolese army) and the UPDF (from the Ugandan army) are often more feared than the LRA rebels from the bush. A different type of fear, a daily one, which cannot be eliminated by fleeing elsewhere to another town, because this type of elsewhere doesn’t exist. During my stay in Niagara, the population set fire to the base of the soldiers meant to secure access to the town, fed up with yet another particularly violent racket perpetrated by the soldiers at the bridge’s entrance.

The LRA’s new display of exactions in the Eastern Province has prompted mass exoduses of the population. Niagara’s 30,000 inhabitants have seen 17,000 displaced people come rushing in. 

These have been dispersed into more or less long-term self-run camps, like the one in Gada, or else host families.

(…) Marie and Sindra have had no news from their families ever since they escaped from the LRA. They help their host families to weed plots near the town. The fertile countryside has been deserted, and even when there are no signs of rebel movement in the surroundings, the women fear rape and looting by the soldiers as much as ever."

Extract from Ténèbres au Paradis, 2011, Éditions Gallimard