The President of the National Assembly made an incursion Monday at the gates of the " triangle of death" in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the bedside of the displaced still traumatized by the recent killings of the armed group ADF.
"It is said that this woman is a great personality, I very much hope that she will do everything so that we can find peace as she says," says Agnès Ngenda, 66, while listening to Jeanine Mabunda. The meeting took place in a classroom in Oicha, in the Beni territory where the group of Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) has killed more than 350 people since October 30, and more than 1,000 since October 2014.
Read also: DRC: twenty dead in new killings attributed to the armed group ADF
Ms. Ngenda has been living since February 2019 with her six grandchildren in this classroom which welcomes a total of twenty displaced families, where the displaced sleep on the benches. "We cut up my husband and two daughters," she says. "We have no food or medicine," said another displaced person, Jacques Kacheche, who fled the ADF with his wife and their four children since October 5, 2019. "We left everything behind. We only dream of going back home, to resume our life where we left it, " explains this 24-year-old farmer, while the President of the Assembly hands over food and money to the displaced.
Read also: Ebola in the DRC: WHO prolongs the international emergency
"We will not leave you, we will not abandon you , " said Jeanine Mabunda, one of the few political leaders to venture to Oicha. “Our country is attacked from this territory. The problem of Beni is the problem of the whole Nation, " added this close friend of former President Joseph Kabila, of whom she was an adviser responsible for combating sexual violence.
Originally, the ADF were Ugandan Muslim rebels present in the current DRC since 1995. Opposed to the regime of President Yoweri Museveni, they have not launched an attack on Kampala for years. They have intensified their attacks on civilians since November, in retaliation for the Congolese army operations against their bases.
See also - DRC: 300,000 people displaced by violence
