AFRICA/DR CONGO - Missionary from the capital of South Kivu: “Bukavu is abandoned to hunger and neglect”

Bukavu (Agenzia Fides) - "I entered the city yesterday morning (May 10, ed.) with a feeling of joy and hope in light of the election of Pope Leo XIV. I seemed to sense this feeling in the people I met, even though the reality remained the same," reports a missionary from Bukavu (who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons), the capital of South Kivu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which was taken over by the M23 militia on February 16 (see Fides, 17/2/2025). Since then, the city has been in a state of limbo, suspended between the lack of services guaranteed by state institutions that are no longer present and insecurity reigns.
"An eight-year-old boy in a school uniform sat on a pipe by the side of the road with a notebook on his lap. “How come you are on the street at this time and not at school?” I asked him. “They sent me away because I did not pay for the school year. My brother stayed, my parents paid for him yesterday, but they could not pay for me. I will wait for him until he finishes and then we will go home together.” His sadness infected me: “It is not your fault or your parents' fault. Children have the right to learn for free. It is the country that is not working...” He nodded, and I continued on my way,” the report continues. "In this time of ongoing bank and cooperative closures, even humanitarian aid is becoming difficult, and how many will be helped? Poverty is spreading day by day: so many have lost their jobs because their deposits were plundered, because there is no money, in the case of civil servants, because they were replaced by someone hired by their new rulers, and sometimes because they refused to submit to their ideology..." the missionary says. "For three months now, there have been no police officers, no police stations, no central prison, no courts, no judges, and no lawyers in the city. The law is being hastily enforced by the military branch of the M23. A few days ago, a poor man walking through the narrow streets of his neighborhood at 7 a.m. on his way to work encountered some armed men who accused him of being a thief and immediately shot him". Sometimes, bodies, tied together with stones, surface from Lake Kivu and have been dumped in the water. There are no investigations, and it is often unknown who killed during the night: an M23 fighter? A thief taking advantage of weapons abandoned by fleeing Congolese soldiers? A former convict among the more than 2,000 released shortly before the M23's arrival on February 16? Revenge and settling of scores? To eliminate someone, it is enough to accuse them of being a thief, a soldier, or one of the Wazalendo...," the missionary laments. "Or was it a group of people plagued by insecurity and hunger?" "Cases of 'popular justice,' executions carried out by popular outcry, are indeed numerous. In their desperation, they seize one or more suspected thieves and kill them immediately. This does not discourage the repetition of the facts. There is no investigation: Bukavu is abandoned to hunger and neglect, left only to the conscience of its inhabitants. Many private and public vehicles have been taken by the residents, used, or taken to neighboring Rwanda. Unjustified taxes are levied on every bundle that arrives from the countryside to the city on a motorcycle or bus; unjustified fines are imposed for non-existent violations. And there is no fruit to be seen in the city," the missionary says of the current situation. "In these last weeks of the year, the children who suffer most are those who are expelled from school, as if the trauma they have been suffering for weeks from constant shelling were not enough. They, too, are often witnesses to violence: What is being sown in their hearts when they should be dreaming of beautiful things?" she asks herself. "People fill the churches, clinging with all their might to the God they believe in, who knows how to listen to the oppressed, but from a human perspective, they see no way out. Distant authorities who do not even offer a word of compassion, great powers pursuing their own interests... People go so far as to say: Let them take away all our minerals, but let us live..." reports the missionary. "Life in eastern Congo is like experiencing a prolonged agony. And the tenacity of the people to smile, the courage to show solidarity, to marry. "Giving birth and thanking God every day that he is still there is like a caress that seeks to revive hope," the missionary concludes. "Today a mother from one of the vibrant congregations, called "Shrika," who take turns bringing food to the General Hospital, testifies to this: "Yesterday it was our Shrika's turn to do the apostolate at the hospital. There was enough food for the sick and their caregivers; the night nurses, the maintenance and security staff also benefited. The war wounded, the combatants... are cared for by the ICRC and Doctors Without Borders. Many do not know how to pay for treatment, so that even though they are cured, they cannot leave the hospital. The group has helped some of them pay the medical bills and some who have no means to pay for medication. ... The number of patients is declining, and with it the income. How can you stock the pharmacy, pay the staff, and buy medical equipment in such a crisis? It is a vicious circle. More and more malnourished children are being cared for... It is the multiplication of loaves." (Agenzia Fides, 12/5/2025)

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