Doors and locks broken down, electrical installations looted, no fuel, no food, no water or electricity: such is the fate of the Congolese police deployed in the war-zone of Ruzizi plain, South Kivu Province to replace the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) at the order of Fèlix Tshisekedi and his government.
Tshisekedi had requested for the withdrawal of the MONUSCO forces whom he deemed useless and unwanted even in the middle of escalated violence in eastern DR Congo.
To date, according to the provincial authorities, four of the ten bases in the province have been transferred to the Congolese authorities, including Kamanyola (in the Ruzizi plain), which, two months after the departure of the Pakistani peacekeepers, looks more like a slum than a police station.
“We have nothing to eat here!” » , exclaims Bruno, one of the local police officers. Surrounded by three colleagues, in civilian clothes and sandals, he prepares foufou (corn or cassava paste) in a pan placed on the ground that he “begged” from a Protestant church in the city. “If I don’t share, my colleagues will starve ,” he says.
Meanwhile, more than half of the 115 police officers deployed to occupy the base have abandoned their post, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP).
And those who remain complain about their living conditions and the lack of pay from government.
“A police officer who goes two days without eating even though he has a weapon, it becomes easy for him to attack peaceful citizens” to get supplies, denounces Joe Wendo, an actor in local civil society.
