WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

I last visited Mwenga in February 2009. At the time, we went there to see how people would be impacted if the Rwandan and Congolese militaries expanded their operations against the FDLR rebel group into South Kivu.    

In February, people in Mwenga told us that they were very scared about these joint operations. There is a large presence of FDLR in Mwenga territory and people said that any operations against the rebel group would certainly jeopardize their own security. People were also scared of the Rwandan army returning to the area given its history of past abuses against the local population there. They told us, “if we flee, we don’t know where we’d go, because in the forest is the FDLR who have threatened to attack us, and in town will be the Rwandan military who have targeted us in the past.”        

While the joint operations never arrived in South Kivu, and Rwanda eventually withdrew its troops from the DRC, the Congolese army (FARDC) recently launched a new operation against the FDLR in South Kivu, called “Kimia II.”  

Many people have been displaced from their homes in South Kivu since the start of Kimia II, including in Mwenga territory.  My colleague Jennifer Smith and I went to Mwenga a few weeks ago to meet with displaced people there and see how the situation has changed.  

People told us they had started fleeing pre-emptively at the end of May, when they heard government radio transmissions instructing them to leave their homes and go to the main town areas because the operations would be starting.  Others fled more recently as a direct result of the fighting between the FDLR and FARDC, as more and more civilians continue to get caught in the crossfire.  

The situation for displaced people in Mwenga remains difficult. Most are living with local families but some are also renting houses. While the host families they live with share what they can, as of yet, there has not been a major humanitarian intervention in Mwenga due to the ongoing insecurity in the area.    

We spoke with a woman who told us that she had fled in early July because she had heard on the radio that the operations would soon start in her village. She spoke of the difficult journey she made through the forest with her three young children. She had been unable to bring along any of her belongings when she fled, and while the host family they were staying with in Mwenga shared what they could, she said her children still had too little to eat each day.  

The displaced woman told us that she wants to return home to tend to her fields and grow her own food, but she did not think it was safe enough yet to go back. She had heard that the FDLR in her village were now holding the remaining population hostage, refusing to allow them to flee. The ongoing fighting between the FDLR and the FARDC was also making any return impossible because of the deteriorating security situation. She told us that she would not return home until there was peace, and until all the armed groups in her area were gone.    

Civilians in eastern DRC continue to bear the brunt of military “solutions” like Kimia II, which won’t bring peace to the Congo, but will only work to further destabilize the region. Instead, the Obama administration should put pressure on the Congolese and Rwandan governments to stick to previous agreements and seek political solutions to the underlying problems in eastern DR Congo so that those who have been forced to flee can return home once again.