Child kidnappings surge in DR Congo’s Goma

GOMA, DR Congo — Valerie pulls a pair of blue shorts and a small white shirt out of a plastic bag. The shirt is stained with blood. It's the school uniform of her eight-year-old son Nathanael, who was kidnapped on his way to class in Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The capital of the troubled North Kivu province in the east of the vast African country has seen a surge in children being kidnapped, tortured, and sometimes even killed.

Nathanael's kidnappers demanded a four-figure ransom, in dollars -- a sum that his single mother in her 30s, who has no fixed income, could not possibly afford to pay, although they do live in a large house provided by one of Valerie's parents.

"It was definitely a Monday," says Valerie of the day when her nightmare began. She cannot be certain if it was in July or August of this year, although everything else is seared into her memory.

On the Tuesday the kidnapper said over the phone: "Give us $5,000 (4,250 euros) or you will find your son's body on your doorstep."

On the Wednesday, Valerie scraped together 20 dollars and sent it by Airtel Money, a mobile phone money transfer system widely used in Africa. After the meagre sum was dispatched, her son screamed over the phone: "Mum, they're killing me!"

On the Sunday, Nathanael was released with an earlobe sliced in half and stab wounds on his arms, his mother said. He told her another child was killed in front of him during his detention.

Goma, a city of about a million people, sits in a touristfriendly location between a lake and a mountain.