Red Cross volunteers in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Bushushu village dug using shovels, sticks, and their bare hands to rescue a body that had been half buried by a landslide.
Employees reported being tired and running short on supplies a week after damaging flooding caused by heavy rainfall. However, victims continued to be discovered amid the debris, in the mountains, on rivers, and in the lake.
We have few alternatives when it comes to transferring deceased bodies. Désiré Yuma Machumu, the provincial head of the Red Cross in Congo’s South Kivu region, characterized the situation as “very worrying.”
Volunteers wearing medical masks came to the landslide site and retrieved the decomposing corpse, which was placed in a white body bag.
The six of them then hoisted it and walked the two miles and three kilometers to the nearest cemetery, where rows of vacant graves awaited them. Over 440 people have been confirmed deceased, according to the Red Cross.
Sanitation disaster
Despite the government’s allegation that it has no official statistics on the missing, local administrator Thomas Bakenga Zirimwabagabo said on Tuesday that at least another 5,000 people are still missing.
On Thursday, Reuters reporters saw 17 bodies being meticulously collected by volunteers.
“The bodies are starting to rot… and some of us have fallen ill,” said volunteer Julien Bisimwa, 27, as he surveyed the ruins of collapsed dwellings and a stack of twisted metal sheets. The region is still being pounded by rain, and it faces more hazards.
“All the drinking water sources have been cut off, everything is gone, toilets have been washed away,” regional chief medical officer Pacifique Chiralwira said.
“At the moment, the population, the survivors, are going to drink the water from the lake,” stated the mayor, “while we continue to discover bodies in there, which exposes us, exposes our population to water-borne diseases in the long run.”
