Muddy water swept away everything, sowing death and desolation in Nyamukubi, one of the villages devastated on Thursday by floods that killed around 400 people in South Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to a still provisional report, Sunday, May 7.
“It feels like the end of the world. I am looking for my parents and my children,” laments Gentille Ndagijimana, with tears in her eyes. At 27, Gentille and her family are from Masisi in the neighboring province of North Kivu. They fled fighting between the Congolese army and March 23 Movement (M23) rebels in January and found refuge here.
She lost her two children, her two sisters and her parents. Her injured husband is in hospital. “I no longer have a family and I have no field. Now I have to look for where to sleep, ”continues the young woman sadly.
At the foot of the green hills of Kalehe territory on the western shore of Lake Kivu, bordering Rwanda, a desert landscape of mud and stones has taken possession of an entire neighborhood. There were residential houses, a market, two schools, a health center, a multipurpose hall, a warehouse. Nothing remains.
Thursday evening, under the effect of heavy rain, the Nyamukubi and Chishova rivers overflowed and washed away everything in their path.
“With hands and some shovels”
“I’m a biker. I had come home from work, dropped off my bike at home and went out to see some friends. When I returned, my house, my motorcycle and the members of my family had disappeared,” testified to AFP Roger Bahavu, father of seven children. All are dead, their mother too, and their grandmother. “Out of eleven people in the family, we only remain two”, sadly says the father of the family, who hopes to find the bodies of his family.
“There are a lot of bodies, we are overwhelmed,” said local Red Cross worker Isaac Habamungu. The administrator of the territory estimated Saturday at 203 the number of bodies found. On Sunday, he mentioned at least 394, including 120 discovered floating on the lake at the level of the island of Idjwi, the others having been found in Nyamukubi and in the neighboring village of Bushushu.
“We believe that many bodies washed up in the lake. We wonder how we will get out of it, adds Isaac Habamungu. We have no body bags, there is no funding for what we do. »
The teams, he continues, dig for the bodies “with their hands and a few shovels”. They wrap the bodies in blankets or sheets before burying them in mass graves.
On the shore of the lake float pieces of wood, sheet metal, furniture and other materials carried by the raging rivers. On sunken houses, young people try to salvage what can still be salvaged: sheet metal, metal structures, planks…
“It’s going to get worse”
The Red Cross and the administration are continuing to register the families who have lost their loved ones, as well as the victims. The village chief, Marcel Mubona, expects even more deaths. “It’s going to get worse,” he said, having just learned of the death of a youngster who had been hospitalized.
Terminus for all the sick and injured, the only operational health facility in the area is a private institution, the “Hospital for the Promotion of Mother and Child Health” which, also overwhelmed, has to deal with the lack of medicines, nursing staff and beds.
“We are waiting for the reaction of the government, to help us send” the most serious cases to larger hospitals, and to “provide us with drugs to take care of the others”, asks Dr. Bauma Ngola, medical director of the ‘hospital.
Sitting on her bed in despair, her face bruised, suffering from severe foot injuries, a young woman thinks she is “dying”. “My wounds and my body are swelling, they say my leg needs to be cut off,” she says. Next to her, her 10-year-old son, whose injuries are causing him more and more pain, is also waiting to be taken care of.
