Six million dead: Why Scotland needs to know about the forgotten conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo
Church of Scotland minister Martin Johnstone describes the conditions he witnessed at a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo and explains how people in Scotland can help
I was looking at a single standpipe in the middle of the camp – the only running water for the families who live here. “We saved up and did it ourselves,” we were told. Perhaps nothing symbolises better both the resilience of the people we met, but also just how forgotten this conflict is by the rest of us.
I spent a few long days in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and met Christian Aid’s partners there. What they are doing is humbling. Day in, day out, they work with people to meet immediate needs – providing food, shelter, clean water – and strive to bring the warring factions together, one person at a time.
Earlier this year, M23 forces took control of North and South Kivu. An estimated two million people fled their homes. Thousands were killed. This latest conflict, and its unfolding humanitarian disaster, is the latest episode of a catastrophe in which an estimated six million have died since the mid-1990s.
A beautiful and mineral-rich country
Airports are closed, bombed and mined. Banks are shut. The whole region is under economic blockade. There is chronic malnutrition. People are starving. Yet this does not need to be a poor country.
The lush, beautiful landscape is breathtaking. There is vast mineral wealth. Indeed, rare earth minerals are one of the things that are being fought over.
This tragedy is now compounded by the collapse of international aid. The UK Government’s decision to reduce its aid budget and the withdrawal of USAID are costing lives.
READ MORE: Scotland’s aid commitment is an act of global solidarity in an ever more fragmented world
We visited a rudimentary health clinic which provides frontline care to 8,000 people. Whilst the facility exists, the drugs once provided through the United Nations are in increasingly short supply.
We met villagers who have been supported to buy and rear their own goats. We heard of the difference this has made – providing milk, food, manure, and even money to pay for school fees. But many of the goats disappeared or were killed during the fighting.
Children with machine guns
Soldiers, who look about 11 years old, sit at the entrance to the village. We ask if they are there because of our visit, but we’re told they are always there. Children with machine guns.
We spent some time with Chance, meeting inside her home. She was keen to share her experiences, but to do so in private. Nursing her youngest child, she talked of the 80 kilometres she walked with three young children to try to escape the violence, whilst seven-and-a-half months pregnant. And of her husband, presumed dead in the fighting.
Whilst we were talking, one of her children sat with his hand on my knee. I became aware that at one point his hand had slipped off my leg, and he had fallen asleep. But this was not the sleep of a tired toddler, but of a hungry child already tired with living.
As Christmas adverts begin to be aired on our TV screens, Christian Aid is asking people to remember the plight of incredibly courageous women like Chance. But it is also asking us to get to know about a forgotten conflict. And to challenge our governments not just to give aid but to work for peace.
Martin Johnstone is a Church of Scotland minister and a trustee of the charity Christian Aid
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