War in Congo

Barbara Davidson

The Dallas Morning News

It’s a war where the victims are not only soldiers but children, old men, women and the sick. They die from bullets, disease, hunger and neglect. This is the world of the forgotten – the faceless thousands who live with the terrible reality that their only escape may be death. The war in Congo (formerly Zaire) is complex, It is at once a civil war of government vs. rebels, an ethnic struggle over who shall be considered a true Congolese citizen, a regional conflict fought on Congolese soil and an extension of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Civilians bear the brunt of this war. A new report calculates that 1.7 million have died in eastern Congo in the last two years because of violence, disease and hunger brought by the war. As a result of the on-going war, there is virtually no infrastructure and almost no social services. Nationwide the UN estimates that the fighting displaces 1.3 million and that 14 million are short on food. “There is no sense to this war,” refugee Mess Tembe somberly explains, “we don’t care who is fighting whom, when we are the target.” Children huddle behind a rebel soldier during a rally in the Goma countryside.

Barbara Davidson, "War in Congo," in POYi Archive, Item #31580, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/31580 (accessed November 23, 2024).