Great Lakes Region

Uvira

“In 1993, the war broke out. I was standing before my front door with my child when my brother-in-law turned up to warn me that some people claimed that I was a Tutsi and wanted to kill me…” Faustine

Abstracts

"The UNHCR transit center in Kavimvira operates at full capacity in both directions. Today, Burundi families are returning to their country after sometimes more than twenty years of exile. Tomorrow, Congolese families will come back from Burundi. The tally of deaths caused by the wars in Kivu is estimated in terms of the closest million. Displaced persons and refugees are counted with the same level of accuracy.

(…) Lydia, one of Faustine’s daughters, was born in the DRC, and was on her way to her parents’ country for the first time.

She hadn’t endured the vicissitudes that her disillusioned mother and aunts had had to bear with. She sings Cabrel and loves Christophe. She wishes to continue her computing studies, or failing the means to do so, to find a good husband: 'It’s true, it’s possible today because men and women are on an equal footing!' Lydia has faith in life and a lovely nature that Mama Faustine has managed to preserve."

Extract from Ténèbres au Paradis, 2011, Éditions Gallimard