Sur de Kivu (un poco cambiado)

Números reflejan una tragedia que parece inevitable. Representada por simples símbolos, la miseria nos resulta soportable. Sin embargo, cuando cada hecho particular recupera su individualidad, y es posible entender que alguien con un nombre, con una familia, con una historia ha padecido los rigores de la miseria humana, el dolor de uno solo de ellos es comparable al dolor de toda la humanidad junta -como un fragmento de recta contiene el mismo número de puntos que la recta de longitud infinita.

El sur de Kivu es una región limitrofe entre Rwanda, Burundi y la República popular del Congo. En ella se hallan refugiados un gran número de desplazados de los conflictos internos de tales países, sumergidos en una guerra civil de origen político y étnico entre Hutus y Tutsis. Ninguna fuerza internacional tiene conocimiento de lo que realmente sucede allí y mucho menos regula la situación. Todos los testimonios provienen de personas que han escapado de dicha región, mantenida en casi total aislamiento por la fuerzas de seguridad de Rwanda.

"The five of us had found refuge in a fishermans hut along the beach near Rusambo. We were exhausted. At around midnight, three soldiers, two Rwandese and one Burundi entered the hut and woke us up. They spoke in Kinyarwanda and Kirundi but we acted as if we did not understand them. They then spoke in Swahili. I explained that we were fishermen and that because of the absence of fuel we could not have gone fishing. But Francois did not speak Swahili well. They told him: 'You are Rwandese; we know you.' They took him out and cut his throat outside the hut."

François Nkurikiye was a young Rwandese Hutu man, who had studied in Uvira from 1994, when he fled from Rwanda to 1995. He had a Tutsi wife.

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"The conversation went like this:
`Are you from Rwanda?'
`Yes'
`Are you Hutu?'
`Yes'
`When did you leave Rwanda?'
`1994'
`Take off your clothes'"

"Pascal crossed himself. I remember it so well. He unbuttoned the first button of his shirt and before he could unbutton the second one, he was shot. he took one bullet in the heart, four in the stomach and one in the head."
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Lemera Hospital, about 85 kilometres north of Uvira, is the largest in South-Kivu, with about 230 beds. In early October, about 300 patients were being tended there. Some were Zairian soldiers wounded in the armed confrontations that were taking place with increasing frequency in the area. Many others were from Burundi. The hospital management had asked for increased protection from the military in exchange for tending the soldiers. Military reinforcements from Kinshasa were sent to Kidoti, two or three kilometres away.

In the early hours of 6 October, members of the Tutsi-led armed group attacked Kidoti. There were fatalities both among the Zairian soldiers and the rebels. There were also civilian casualties, at least two of whom appeared to have been targeted and killed deliberately.

"Two priests were killed. One of them, Koko, was killed on the spot, the other, l'abbé Ndogole, was taken hostage first and was found dead later in the mountains."

Then the armed group went on to attack Lemera Hospital.

"Those who could not flee in time were killed. The attackers entered the hospital, looted the medicines and killed the patients. Two nurses, Kadaguza and Simbi, and an assistant nurse, Maganya were killed."

When those who had fled returned to the hospital, at about four in the afternoon, they found a scene of carnage. According to eye-witnesses, around 30 patients had been killed in their beds, either with bullets or bayonets. Most were members of Burundian armed opposition groups who had been wounded in fighting in Burundi. Nurses had been killed in their quarters. A Burundian doctor whose house was riddled with bullets escaped moments before the attack.