Sex and death in the heart of Africa

[seemslikeadream]

25 May 2004


Faela is 13 years old; Joseph is just under six months. Sitting on the dusty ground in Bunia's largest camp for internally-displaced people (IDPs), she cradles Joseph in her arms, and talks about how she ensures that she and her son are fed.

"If I go and see the soldiers at night and sleep with them, then they sometimes give me food, maybe a banana or a cake," she says, looking down at her son. "I have to do it with them because there is nobody to care, nobody else to protect Joseph except me. He is all I have and I must look after him."

It is a story that might not sound out of place in any part of the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo but for one thing: the soldiers Faela is talking about are not from the rebel groups who have devastated Ituri province, in the north-east of the country, during the past four and a half years of conflict. Rather, they are part of the United Nations peacekeeping force, Monuc (UN Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo), and are stationed on UN orders next to the IDP camp in Bunia.

The UN has taken over the local airport, once a bustling trade point that served the entire Ituri province. The region is rich in natural resources, including uranium and huge, newly discovered, oil reserves. Bunia airport is teeming with military personnel, the condition and number of UN planes in direct contrast to the rusty and abandoned Congolese planes nearby.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=524557