The operating table gathers dust and the scalpels are left on the side. The hospital in Drodro, one of the main localities in the territory of Djugu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is deserted. James Semire is putting on his white coat for the first time in weeks.
The acting chief medical officer fled the facility on March 22 with his team to escape an attack attributed to militiamen from the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco), an armed mystical-religious group that claims to defend the Lendu community. against that of the Hema. That day, his laboratory colleague was seriously injured. “He received several machete blows to the head, neck, shoulder and lower limbs,” recalls James Semire.
This is not the first time that the 30-year-old has left his post in full service. Earlier this year, Drodro and its surroundings had already been attacked in retaliation after the murder of a teacher on January 8. Since it resumed in 2017, the conflict between Héma and Lendu has claimed several thousand lives in Ituri.
The antagonisms between these two communities date back to colonization, a period during which the Belgian authorities relied on the Héma to the detriment of the Lendu, who claim to be the natives. After independence, the feeling of marginalization of the latter was accentuated when agricultural concessions were acquired by Hema during President Mobutu Sese Seko’s “zairization”, a process of redistribution of property belonging to foreigners to Congolese.
These economic and land rivalries lay dormant until the late 1990s, when community militias tipped the region rich in arable land and minerals, including gold, into the Second Congo War (1999-2003) involving Kinshasa and two neighboring armies, Rwandan and Ugandan.
The number of displaced people has doubled
“In the past, the health facility was empty for two or three weeks maximum after the attacks. But today, as the abuses are linked, patients are afraid to come back, “observes James Semire, despite the reopening of the hospital. In mid-April, the doctor only dared stay a few hours there and still spent the night 12 kilometers away, in Rhoe, in a makeshift cottage.
In the central alley of this camp that has become a village, vendors are seated in front of their basin of flour, their hands whitened by cassava. Motorcycles honk their horns to make their way through the crowd. Since January, the number of displaced people has doubled. About 65,000 people took refuge in the town. All belong to the Hema community and have come to seek the protection of soldiers from Monusco, the United Nations peacekeeping mission, installed since the end of 2018 on Rhoe hill.
In front of her shelter, old Dzenza – who preferred to give only her first name – watches the children strolling around, a rolled cigarette stuck in her ear. “I am 80 years old and I have never seen so much violence,” says the woman who lost four members of her family the day her village was attacked a few months ago in the Buku groupement. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” she concludes, helpless in front of her nearly empty pot.
During the second half of April, the World Food Program (WFP) organized a food distribution. The first since June 2022. Bags of corn flour, cans of oil and peas were distributed by the United Nations agency. “Will this food be enough for everyone?” And they will last until when? Asks Samuel Kpadjanga, the main manager of the site. The greatest suffering here is hunger. No one wants to go out to cultivate the surrounding fields for fear of attacks. »
Residents hardly dare to go as far as the church, located just before the entrance gate to Rhoe’s camp. The place of worship has no walls. A few benches are surrounded by wooden stakes on which tarpaulins are spread when it rains. From here the faithful can contemplate the green hills during the mass. The one opposite, two kilometers away as the crow flies, looks like all the others. However, no inhabitant of the camp, mostly Hema, will risk venturing into Blukwa Mbi, a Lendu village.
Militias, attacks and assassinations
To get there, you have to cross the market where people used to meet. Today, the wooden stalls act as a dividing line between the two communities. A few kilometers further, Blukwa Mbi is silent. Only the sound of the wind rushes through the pines. The red brick buildings that line the road look abandoned. One of them, an old school, is barely standing.
On several occasions, the establishment was destroyed and set on fire, the furniture and the library looted. First during the Second Congo War from 1999 to 2003 and then when fighting resumed in 2017. “The school was moved 14 kilometers away due to insecurity. Living here had become impossible”, regrets Origène Uwonda, the director. The teacher has also moved, hosted by a host family, to get away from the so-called hema area. “Men of bad intentions” regularly make inroads, he laments.
In Blukwa Mbi, the “Zaire” are presented as responsible for this destruction. This militia, which claims to defend the Hema community, is accused of attacks and assassinations by several human rights defense associations and the UN. It is also the great rival of Codeco, the other local group presented as a defender of the Lendu community, whose abuses are also regularly denounced.
“When Father Florent, a Lendu priest, died in the Hema zone [in 2017], justice did not do its job well to find the culprits. So popular justice began to be done, ”explains Salomon Jibu, for whom the death of the religious was the spark that rekindled old hatreds. The man, who presents himself as a spokesperson for the Lendu community, is vindictive. “By the way, my name can be translated as ‘corpse of Hema,'” he explains calmly. But in this village, he is the only one who dares to say the word Codeco. The militia, absent, also seems to terrorize within its own community.
An invisible border separates the two communities
The rivalries of the localities of Rhoe and Blukwa Mbi are far from isolated in the territory of Djugu, the epicenter of the community conflict where the Hema and Lendu villages are intertwined. In Ituri, nearly 400 people have been victims of Codeco and Zaire, according to the Kivu Security Barometer (which maps conflicts in the region) since the beginning of the year. A count that does not include the collateral victims of this war. Precisely those that Daniel Pidjo Goba, the incumbent nurse at the Blukwa Mbi health center, is trying to treat.
A few weeks ago, a pregnant woman died in these premises. “She needed an emergency caesarean section. And we couldn’t save her,” he said. Usually, the reference center for difficult deliveries is located about fifteen kilometers away, at the Drodro hospital, in the haem area. But since January, no one has dared to cross the invisible border that separates the two communities. “They are assured that they will be treated well on site, but the patients don’t want to hear anything,” he continues.
The caregiver is also afraid to go to this hospital. Yet it is there that he restocks his medicine. His stocks are almost empty. Also the waiting room. Adults no longer come for treatment, for lack of means, since the resumption of clashes. “There are extremists on both sides, but when things go wrong, we get penalized,” the nurse said helplessly.
