Saturday 22 November
This afternoon we went to visit churches where displaced people are now living. Around 70 % of the people who’ve been displaced are in camps. 20% are in schools and churches and the remaining 10% have been hosted by the local population.
We went with Ndungo, the HEAL Africa staff member we are working with, and a pastor, Revd Baleesha. Revd Baleesha is the head of a group of around 300 urban pastors around Goma.
The first church really took us by surprise – we arrived to find a mini camp all around the church. We’d been expecting to see IDPs living in the church, but the scale of what we saw was greater than what we’d imagined. There were about 10 thousand people living around the church. The IDPs have so far received nothing so they’ve made makeshift shelters out of wood and leaves. Whereas in the camps they would have had plastic sheeting, here they have just had to find whatever they could.
Gary went and walked around the camp – he had the questionable delights of viewing the overfull latrines – while I sat with a lady called Suzanne Batsema inside her shelter. Suzanne has been living there for 2 months and fled her village in Masisi because of the fighting. Everyone in her village has left now, and where they used to live, Laurent Nkunde’s troops have moved in. As we sat there, I noticed that Suzanne was wearing very thin plastic flip flops. She walked for the whole day wearing them, and the clothes she had on her. When it was getting dark and she and her family reached Goma, they saw some open ground by a church, thought they would be safe there, so stopped. That’s where they are still now. The shelter they’ve built is more or less like the shape of an igloo; the structure is of branches bent into a semi circle, covered with leaves. I bent down to enter (and I’m not exactly tall!) and was invited to sit down on something – I’m actually not really sure what it was. Suzanne was in there with her son and another lady. With the HEAL Africa staff member and me too, it was fairly crowded. It felt quite damp – it rains most days here and there is nothing to stop the rain coming in. An old cement sack hanging from the ceiling divided the shelter into 2. Behind the sack was a bed. It was probably a bit bigger than a standard single bed we would have in the UK. Suzanne, her husband and 5 children aged 20, 12, 11, 10 and 8, all sleep in the one bed. So far they have received no distributions of anything – food, blankets, pots and pans, plastic sheeting etc. HEAL Africa partner with the church on whose ground they’re staying in, and are planning the support that they can give. This was the first we had seen for ourselves anything of the situation on the ground. It was truly shocking and backs up all that we have seen and heard in meetings and on the news.
We later met with a pastor. He urged us – “if you get the chance to talk to people in the outside world, ask them to pray for peace. We need peace above all, and the IDPs want to go home”. Please do pray for peace, pray for the IDPs and also for the many families who are hosting those who aren’t in camps. The burden on them is also heavy.
Thank you
This afternoon we went to visit churches where displaced people are now living. Around 70 % of the people who’ve been displaced are in camps. 20% are in schools and churches and the remaining 10% have been hosted by the local population.
We went with Ndungo, the HEAL Africa staff member we are working with, and a pastor, Revd Baleesha. Revd Baleesha is the head of a group of around 300 urban pastors around Goma.
The first church really took us by surprise – we arrived to find a mini camp all around the church. We’d been expecting to see IDPs living in the church, but the scale of what we saw was greater than what we’d imagined. There were about 10 thousand people living around the church. The IDPs have so far received nothing so they’ve made makeshift shelters out of wood and leaves. Whereas in the camps they would have had plastic sheeting, here they have just had to find whatever they could.
Gary went and walked around the camp – he had the questionable delights of viewing the overfull latrines – while I sat with a lady called Suzanne Batsema inside her shelter. Suzanne has been living there for 2 months and fled her village in Masisi because of the fighting. Everyone in her village has left now, and where they used to live, Laurent Nkunde’s troops have moved in. As we sat there, I noticed that Suzanne was wearing very thin plastic flip flops. She walked for the whole day wearing them, and the clothes she had on her. When it was getting dark and she and her family reached Goma, they saw some open ground by a church, thought they would be safe there, so stopped. That’s where they are still now. The shelter they’ve built is more or less like the shape of an igloo; the structure is of branches bent into a semi circle, covered with leaves. I bent down to enter (and I’m not exactly tall!) and was invited to sit down on something – I’m actually not really sure what it was. Suzanne was in there with her son and another lady. With the HEAL Africa staff member and me too, it was fairly crowded. It felt quite damp – it rains most days here and there is nothing to stop the rain coming in. An old cement sack hanging from the ceiling divided the shelter into 2. Behind the sack was a bed. It was probably a bit bigger than a standard single bed we would have in the UK. Suzanne, her husband and 5 children aged 20, 12, 11, 10 and 8, all sleep in the one bed. So far they have received no distributions of anything – food, blankets, pots and pans, plastic sheeting etc. HEAL Africa partner with the church on whose ground they’re staying in, and are planning the support that they can give. This was the first we had seen for ourselves anything of the situation on the ground. It was truly shocking and backs up all that we have seen and heard in meetings and on the news.
We later met with a pastor. He urged us – “if you get the chance to talk to people in the outside world, ask them to pray for peace. We need peace above all, and the IDPs want to go home”. Please do pray for peace, pray for the IDPs and also for the many families who are hosting those who aren’t in camps. The burden on them is also heavy.
Thank you
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