After a month after rebels closed in on the eastern Congo village of Drodro, the hospital’s once-crowded rooms are abandoned, and Doctor James Semire explores the gloomy corridors, wondering when patients would dare to return.
According to United Nations figures, the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (CODECO) expanded its attacks on civilian villages in the Djugu district of Ituri province, causing an estimated 550,000 people to flee their homes between January and March.
Semire said that in the middle of March, members of the Hema herding community started fleeing Drodro in preparation for an anticipated CODECO assault. Among the hundreds of militias that destabilized the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1990s was one that purported to protect the interests of Lendu farmers who were in conflict with Hema herders.
On April 18, the doctor recalled that by the time CODECO soldiers set up camp on the hill near Drodro in broad daylight on March 22, most Hema residents had left.
“Suddenly, someone came to tell me that there were gunshots outside,” recalled Semire, who also fled his home but waited at the hospital in case anybody need medical assistance.
The repetition of attacks, he claims, discourages people from returning to the region.
According to the United Nations, 3 million people in Ituri province need assistance, and the CODECO raids have exacerbated the problem.
CAMP SHELTER MOVEMENT
Many people in Ituri have fled their homes and towns, seeking sanctuary in areas like Rhoe, a temporary community north of Drodro near a United Nations peacekeeping base. According to camp spokesman Samuel Kpadjanga, the city’s population has grown from 35,000 at the turn of the century to 65,000 now.
The camp has immediate requirements. Some folks live in shacks made entirely of shreds of canvas stapled together. According to Grace Mugisalonga, a mental health expert at Rhoe for the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, many residents are traumatized as a consequence of losing their homes and belongings and being subjected to physical or sexual assault.
Rhoe is around 70 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Bunia, and the road between the two is littered with CODECO roadblocks, making it difficult for the camp to acquire supplies. People who leave the camp, according to Kpadjanga, are often assaulted by militants hidden in adjacent fields and forests.
A local who did not want to be identified said three men had held them at gunpoint in a nearby field the day before.
They got into a brawl. They were divided on whether or not to kill me. “My life is safe,” she wept in a Rhoe camp tent as a kid stared through the doorway, “but they took everything from me, my scythe, my money.”
