Children injured and displaced by inter-ethnic violence

“I was alone at home when the militiamen arrived to set the place on fire”, says Freddy, a 12-year-old boy from Tanganyika Province, east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). One day in April 2017, Freddy was alone at home. His mother and little brother went out to get cassava and his father had been traveling for several days.

“The house started to burn and I could not get out”  

For several years, an inter-ethnic conflict has ravaged the province of Tanganyika. The conflict took a new turn when ethnic minority militias formed an alliance with the Mai Mai Yakutumba armed group that led attacks in the Provinces of Tanganyika, South Kivu and Maniema. Children are the first victims of this violence.

On this day of April 2017, Freddy sees his life stop and his death planned. A part of his body, his right shoulder blade, begins to have serious burns. "I was screaming and crying," recalls the boy. When the militia was pushed out of the village, a villager enters the house to extract Freddy and to put him out of danger.

In the emergency, the villager she entrusts the young wounded to a group of people fleeing the violence. When the group arrived in Kalemie, the capital of Tanganyika Province, they settled in a school compound but Freddy did not receive medical care. Very quickly, his burn became infected. Fortunately, a community relay identified Freddy as an unaccompanied child. Quickly, Freddy was entrusted to a local UNICEF partner organization, and was taken care of at the General Hospital of Kalemie. Three months later, Freddy joined a foster family and was enrolled in a dial center to pursue his primary studies.

“Everything changed for me,” says Freddy who still does not know what happened to his parents and his little brother.