DR Congos fortrædeligheder vil tilsyneladende ingen ende tage – oprørere kræver nu selvstændighed for den mineralrige Katanga-provins i kæmpelandets sydlige del og de har fordrevet 400.000 civile i en benhård kampagne, hvor landsbyer konsekvent brændes ned.
MITWABA, 4 February 2014 (IRIN): Where children once played with beads (perler /kugler) and bicycle wheels, now stand only the shells of their homes: blackened wooden beams (bjælker), cooking pots melted by fire, and mud blocks from the tumbled (sammenstyrtede) walls softening in the rain.
Village after village in this remote region of the DR Congo has been razed to the ground since October 2013 by armed groups calling for the resource-rich southern province of Katanga to secede (løsrive sig) and become an independent state.
These groups, as well as political affiliates operate under the collective name of Mai Mai Kata Katanga.
The “scorched earth” campaign by the rebels and clashes with security forces have displaced up to 400.000 people from what has been dubbed the “Triangle of Death.”
An unknown number of people have been killed or wounded, and top UN official for DR Congo last week called the situation a “humanitarian disaster.”
Many of those displaced have found refuge with relatives or other host families in the towns of Manono, Mitwaba or Pweto – the three points of the triangle – or have re-settled elsewhere.
Some have been able to return to their homesteads to rebuild. But the poorest have been driven into the bush or to villages at risk of further attacks.
The affected communities are vulnerable even by the standards of impoverished DR Congo, which ranks last in the UN’s Human Development Index.
Rural Katanga benefits little from the wealth generated by vast mining operations further to the south in the province.
According to the World Food Program (WFP), surveys in Mitwaba and Manono last year indicated acute malnutrition rates of 16 percent and 20 percent, respectively, and the figures have likely worsened.
Mai Mai leader free again
Violence has surged in the area following the 2011 jailbreak of a Mai Mai leader who had haunted the region before his detention in 2007.
Hopes for peace rose last year when hundreds of fighters surrendered to the army, but the remaining rebels have responded with the scorched earth policy, which shows no sign of abating (stilne af).
Survivors told IRIN of small rebel bands armed with assault rifles, axes, and bows and arrows storming their villages, screaming at the inhabitants to run for their lives, and setting fire to the thatched (tækkede) roofs of their homes.
While civilians have been mostly spared, rebels have hunted down village leaders and engaged in gun battles with soldiers sent to combat them.
In broad daylight
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/99589/thousands-flee-scorched-earth-campaign-in-drc-s-katanga
Mere om Katangas omtumlede historie på
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Katanga
og på http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Katanga
