Genocide Continues in East Congo

My dear sister and brother,

I am grieving today, but at the same time I feel shame for my country, especially my province. Seems like I am always sharing only bad news. My heart is heavy in this time. Why don’t our authorities intervene? Why doesn’t the world come to intervene if our authorities don’t? Maybe our tears have created an ocean that no one can traverse.

Genocide is not just about numbers, but the way in which lives are indiscriminately taken. Today, the bodies of Nyamwiza Francine and Nyamutarutwa were brought back to Minembwe Center. They went out yesterday to forage for food for their children, but Mai Mai rebels came upon them and brutalized them, raping them and then sticking machetes up their vaginas and cutting off their breasts, because they are women of a certain tribe. What words can we add to their tragic stories that we have not already said in the stories of yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

April is a month notorious for remembering genocides around the world and throughout history. But in Congo, we can’t yet speak of genocide in the past tense. Together We Remember all the genocides of the past. Will you also sit with me today, remembering us, still in the midst of genocide in Congo.