“It’s as though he called us here to die,” says one former fighter about Congo’s president. He lives in a dismal camp for ex-guerillas
Shukuru Bijadunia, aged 23, handed his real rifle to the Congolese authorities in 2018 and has languished in a dismal camp ever since. He sleeps without a mattress in a shabby tent with other former rebels. Last year no food was provided at the camp for nine months. “I sleep badly, I barely eat and there is no medicine when we get sick,” says Mr Bijadunia. “Life in the bush was better.” Hundreds of other former rebels agree.
On November 7th gunmen attacked two villages near the Ugandan border, killing Congolese soldiers. The attackers are believed to be members of the23, a militia backed by Rwanda that in 2012 captured Goma, a city of 2m people, before being defeated and forced to surrender a year later byforces and the Congolese army. Now it seems to have reassembled. The American embassy recently warned its citizens in Goma to stay at home, fearing another attack on the city.
Foreign donors have pumped millions into dysfunctional disarmament schemes. The World Bank alone has contributed $171m to three programmes. Some have been laughable. Theonce offered rebels $100 for each of their guns. But, as Séverine Autesserre points out in her book, “The Frontlines of Peace”, a Kalashnikov sells for $40 on the black market. So a militiaman could hand in his rustiest gun, buy two more, and still have money left over for beer. Other programmes have been horrific.
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