Congolese cross a lake to escape an inferno
Sebagoro, Uganda, (MILLAT ONLINE):A daily flotilla of wooden canoes makes the 10-hour eastward crossing of Lake Albert ferrying hundreds of refugees from DR Congo’s latest spasm of violence to the safety of Uganda.
The repurposed fishing vessels come to Sebagoro beach crammed with the bedraggled and dispossessed survivors of an outbreak of fighting between rival Hema and Lendu communities in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In recent weeks more than 28,000 have made the passage, according to United Nations figures, most of them women and children, bringing with them tales of horrific violence.
“When they were starting to kill we saw we were going to die, so we ran away. My two sisters were at home and they killed them,” said 25-year-old Dorika Rokorasha who lost track of her husband in the panic.
“I took the boat and escaped.”
The Hema cattle herders and Lendu farmers of Congo’s Ituri region are antagonistic neighbours and outbreaks of low-level violence are common.
But in the late 1990s and early 2000s their fight became a broader, more brutal battle stoked by Rwanda and Uganda which were eager to seize gold, diamond, timber and influence as part of a wider continental war that played out inside Congo’s borders.