Bunagana (Uganda), May 9 (EFE). – It wasn’t the first time that Beatrice, a poor rural farmworker, had heard the sounds of war: gunfire, bombings, and cries of horror. Other rebel groups have fought in her hometown of Binza, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), since she was a child. But this time, she couldn’t take it anymore.
The 37-year-old, who chose not to reveal her last name out of fear for her safety, decided to flee after the rebel group March 23 Movement (M23) killed her husband last month. She couldn’t even bury him.
She was told that the insurgents had launched a bomb at a group that included her husband. That’s all she knew. For the first time, she realized that her children could be the next to die.
Panic drove her to walk an entire day to Uganda. The children complained as night fell. They said they were tired and hungry. But Beatrice was too scared to let them stop.
“I don’t know why these rebels are fighting. I’ve never talked to them. When we hear gunfire and bombs, we try to escape any way we can to avoid being killed,” she told EFE.
Beatrice speaks slowly, with restrained anger borne from exhaustion. She made it to Bunagana, one of the border posts separating the DRC from Uganda. It’s a safe place, but she doesn’t smile. She doesn’t even crack a shy grin. She doesn’t want to be here.
And she’s not alone. According to Ugandan authorities, about 50 Congolese cross the Bunagana border daily to escape M23 battles this year.
According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), since the beginning of the crisis in March 2022, over 1.6 million people have been displaced, and recent escalations have forced hundreds of thousands more to seek refuge in crowded conditions in neighboring countries.
The IFRC is expanding its cross-border coordination with National Red Cross Societies and is supporting refugees in countries like Uganda, thanks to continued support and humanitarian aid funding from various donors, including the European Union.
“They are also hungry, but unfortunately we don’t have food at the border here to give them. And to those who are sick and we have our first aid books we can give, we do first aid. Those who are again needing more help we refer them to their organization responsible for giving treatment” said Ugandan James Kali, an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) volunteer, who greets Congolese refugees daily in Bunagana with a warm welcome.
“They don’t have enough clothing either. Whole families with small packages. They tell us they’ve left everything across. Some of their relatives are missing. Some of their relatives, they say, are dead,” Kali added.
Beatrice told him she had shared dreams with her husband: to buy more land so they could eat better and use the harvest to pay for their children’s education. But war has shattered those plans.
An endless war
At 26, Congolese Yudita Ntacowakora lived a simple life but enjoyed it. She had a garden that provided food for her two children. But when rebels took her village of Kaweza last year, problems mounted.
“M23 tells us that part of the country doesn’t belong to us. They say it’s theirs. They harass farmers and rape women,” Yudita told EFE at the Nyakabande refugee transit center in southwestern Uganda, about 20 kilometers from Bunagana.
She recalled that her husband left after losing all his relatives to M23. She doesn’t know where he is. He barely answers her calls. Sometimes, he says he’s looking for work in Goma, a city in the DRC. But Yudita has her doubts.
Maybe he joined a rebel group, but Yudita prefers not to discuss that possibility.
Over a hundred armed groups are fighting in eastern DRC, but none has the military strength of M23, which allegedly cooperates with neighboring Rwanda, something Kigali has consistently denied. M23 has defeated the Congolese army in so many battles that it now controls towns in North Kivu province.
To suppress them, the Congolese Armed Forces collaborate with other armed groups, enemies of M23 now rebranded as “wazalendo” (“patriots”).
As the fighting continues, hundreds of Congolese in Nyakabande wait in line to be registered for relocation to start a new life in one of Uganda’s refugee settlements.
Yudita watches them as she prepares to nurse one of her young children, who is impatiently trying to climb up her body.
“There’s no peace in Congo. We always hear on the radio that the rebels are giving us a few days to return to our homes, but then the attacks increase instead of stopping,” she lamented.
“Personally, I believe there will never be peace. We were born and grew up in a war. And now our children don’t know peace either and can’t get a good education,” she concluded. EFE