“A bomb was dropped in my relative daughter’s school today… but you know for them, this is now normal.. we have lived through the war.”
The above was said within a conversation yesterday about DRC. Only few weeks ago, I did a short report on Deutsche Welle on Southern Africa deploying troops to the DRC. And we interrogated whether this is the last resort to peace or the the end to this war ravaging the DRC for decades non-stop.
Maybe the question is Who is benefiting from the war in the DRC?
I am not a great fan of football ( but yesterday was spectacular, I thought my heart was going to jump off my sleeves at some point. Thank you Super Eagles)
But back to the story.
Yesterday after Nigeria’s match, I joined my friend Dorcas Sanginga Alame to watch the match between DRC and Ivory Coast. Though they (DRC) lost but the image of the gesture of the players protesting and raising awareness at the same time on the violence in the DRC cannot be ignored- one hand covering the mouth, two fingers to the temple.
I remember some of my course mates from DRC in my first degree who never went home during vacations or holidays. They stayed back in Kenya or would go to somewhere else but not DRC because it never completely felt safe.
But the country is home for many others who would have no luxury of leaving to find peace elsewhere. Millions have been displaced, the humanitarian crisis is amplifying, and there are outbreaks of diseases in several camps because of a lack of access to clean and safe water. Who is benefiting from this war? It would seem it is better to have more support in the supply of arms and increased sales of weapons than seeing the conflict end.
DRC again shows the contrast of how a nation can be very rich yet extremely poor and being a tool to empower other interests. Last week in an interview with an African scholar and conflict and peace resolution expert, he says, certain countries in Africa can only find peace through force/revolution. If not they would remain at war while the beneficiaries continue to amass immeasurable wealth share the spoils.
“Thousands are “on the road right now”, trying to escape the violence and get to Goma, Al Jazeera’s Alain Uaykani said, reporting from Bulengo on Wednesday.
“They have been fighting for a week right now, but this morning, again, rebels have tried to take over the main city,” he explained”- Al Jazeera
But somehow, it seemed that this war has been “normalized” and it is DRC’s lot?
