Fear and trauma haunt Congolese massacre survivors
YUMBI, DR Congo: Wounded in the head and chest and with her children in tow, Miniunga Bonkita fled to the haven of an island in the Congo River, a sliver of land between two nations. “I stumbled across the assailants as I was returning home,” the young mother told AFP. “They shot at me,” she said. “I fell and then they started beating me.”
More than 500 fellow members of the Banunu community were slaughtered on December 16-17 in Yumbi, a remote region in western DR Congoa massacre whose full details are only now emerging, almost two months later. Bonkita found refuge with her children and about 100 other Banunus on Moniende island in the river that has given its name to countries on both banks: the vast Democratic Republic of Congo, once ruled by Belgium, and the smaller Republic of Congo, a former French colony. Yumbi, located in Mai-Ndombi province, lies about 400 kilometers north of Kinshasa, reached by a difficult two-day boat trip from the capital.
At least 535 people were slaughtered, according to a UN toll based on a count of the bodies. Almost all the victims were members of the Banunu ethnic group, hunted down by armed men from the Batende community. Authorities have presented the killings as an act of spontaneous violence-tensions between rival communities that exploded in a dispute over the burial of a Banunu tribal chief. But several sources in the area told AFP that the bloodbath was carefully planned using military-style tactics, and some assailants wore army uniforms.
Paddling from fear
At least 16,000 people have fled over the river to the Republic of Congo, many of them seeking shelter in the district of Makotimpoko, according to authorities in Brazzaville. “They came in dugout canoes, some of them paddling with their hands because they had no oar. They were bare-chested, without clothes,” said Father Gicquaire, the priest at Makotimpoko. Bosukisa Montole, cradling a son who had been wounded in the neck, said: “We rushed to the river to try to escape. We were lucky because we didn’t run into people with weapons on the way there. But when we were making our way across in the canoe, my child and my wife were shot at.” Survivor Lobota Lifuna said: “As we fled, we could see the Batende chopping children into pieces on the river bank.” — AFP