Goma, Nord-Kivu November 2011
Yes, the violence is now quite serious. They will come to your house at night, they will demand money and they will kill you.
Sometimes it is by people who are carrying out an execution, where there has been some kind of business deal and the sharing has not been done to someone’s satisfaction. In that case they just kill you, or punish you. Those are common—there were 5 of them here last month, just the ones that I know about. The other kind are robberies that are planned. They get to know you, or know of you, and when you will have money for some reason. The problem is these people don’t have accurate information, they just hear or get the idea that a person has a lot of money and assume they have it with them. They will come to a house at night and demand $10,000 from someone. He will say all I have is $1,000 and here it is. But they think there is more so they beat the person and kill them also. Once they start a robbery they know that they have been recognised, so they have to commit a murder as well.
It is risky in my area. I don’t go out at night. But even that is not enough because they will come to your house. The other problems are where people are robbed in the street, for their cellphone, their money, whatever they have. No matter how small the amount, it is still worth it to these people. In these cases people are attacked, beaten up and robbed, sometimes even killed, most often not, although these are the most unpredictable. They are small time robberies, they involve thieves and street people, poor people who are desperate for anything. The other risk of being on the streets at night is running into soldiers and the police; they will make trouble for you and demand, or take, money from you. You are not going to complain about it to the police the next day; you won’t get justice and will just create enemies and more trouble for yourself.
The bigger attacks are often by unidentified armed men in uniform. Who is it? Unpaid soldiers, rebels, the demobilised, criminals, just anyone who knows how to do it and doesn’t mind doing it.
It is getting worse now, we are in the middle of an election and that is never a good time; things are unstable, there is less control and things may deteriorate further after this election. But the truth is, although the situation is now worse, it is not significantly worse. We have lived this way for a long time.