Muddy water swept away everything, sowing death and desolation in Nyamukubi, one of the villages devastated Thursday by floods that killed around 400 people in South Kivu in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a report still provisional this Sunday, May 7.
“It looks like the end of the world. I am looking for my parents and my children”, laments Gentille Ndagijimana, with tears in her eyes. At 27, Gentille and her family are from Masisi in the neighboring province of North Kivu. They fled fighting between the Congolese army and M23 rebels in January and found refuge here.
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She lost her two children, her two sisters and her parents. Her injured husband is in hospital. “I no longer have a family and I don’t have a field. Now I have to find a place to sleep…”continues the young woman sadly.
“When I returned, my family members had disappeared”
At the foot of the green hills of Kalehe territory on the western shore of Lake Kivu bordering Rwanda, a desert landscape of mud and stones has taken possession of an entire neighborhood. There were dwelling houses, a market, two schools, a health center, a multipurpose room, a warehouse. Nothing remains.
On Thursday evening, under the effect of heavy rain, the Nyamukubi and Chishova rivers overflowed and washed away everything in their path.
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“I am a biker. I had come home from work, dropped off my motorcycle at home and went out to see some friends. When I returned, my house, my motorbike and my family members had disappeared”, testifies to AFP Roger Bahavu, father of seven children. All are dead, their mother too, and their grandmother. “Out of eleven people in the family, we only remain two”sadly loose the father, who hopes to find the bodies of his family.
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“There are a lot of bodies, we are overwhelmed”, is alarmed Isaac Habamungu, an agent of the local Red Cross. The administrator of the territory calculated on Saturday at 203 the number of bodies found. Sunday, he mentioned at least 394, including 120 discovered floating on the lake at the level of the island of Idjwi, the others having been found in Nyamukubi and in the neighboring village of Bushushu.
“We think a lot of bodies have washed up in the lake… We wonder how we’re going to get out of this”adds Isaac. “We have no body bags, there is no funding for what we do”he said.
The teams, he continues, are digging for the corpses “with hands and a few shovels”. They wrap the bodies in blankets or sheets before burying them in mass graves.
On the shore of the lake float pieces of wood, sheet metal, furniture and other materials carried by the raging rivers. On sunken houses, young people try to salvage what can still be salvaged: sheet metal, metal structures, planks…
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The Red Cross and the administration continue to register the families who have lost theirs, as well as the victims.
Lack of medicines, beds and nursing staff
The village chief, Marcel Mubona, expects even more deaths. This will ” to get worse “he says, when he has just learned of the death of a young man who had been hospitalized.
Terminus for all the sick and injured, the only operational health facility in the area is a private institution, the“hospital for the promotion of mother and child health” who, too overwhelmed, has to deal with the lack of medicines, nursing staff and beds.
“We are waiting for the reaction of the government, to help us forward” the most serious cases to larger hospitals, and for “provide us with medicine in order to take care of others”asks Dr. Bauma Ngola, the hospital’s medical director.
Sitting on her bed in despair, her face swollen, suffering from serious injuries to her foot, a young woman thinks she is ” dying “. “My wounds and my body are swelling, they say my leg needs to be cut off”, she says. Beside her, her 10-year-old son, whose injuries are hurting him more and more, is also waiting for us to take care of him.
