Demolition on IDPs Houses in Rusayu One Goma DRC on influence of money in order to get more people
Demolition of houses for IDPs by CNR (The National Commission for Refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo
One of the IDPs victims looking at his house that was demolished by CNR officers, just in one minute his house was down
On Monday September 11th, 2023 the Government Body the National Commissioner for Refugees known as CNR that is in charge of land in camps demolished houses of some IDPs in Rusayu One Camp, the operation started at around 10am and people were forced to leave. We visited the area and noticed that most of the demolished houses where constructed on the road reserve, and this spark the first question where was CNR when people put their houses there. Most of those affected have not yet received relief aid and this put in state of vulnerability then after making all possible efforts to get where they put their head, CNR came and destroyed it, without even supporting people with necessary equipment to build another shelter.
Until now those affected are still without humanitarian relief aid in Rusayu One. On Tuesday then AIDES hold a meeting with the victims but nothing was proposed in order to help the victims. We are concerned by the inhuman character in which the demolition was done, why was it done on hurry, who had interests in that and the allegations of bribery and the traffic of influence in order to favor certain camp leaders in order to embezzle the humanitarian relief aid.
This woman collecting the rest of her house while shading tears when she was thinking about the efforts she deployed to build this house, and wondering where she will sleep that night, and how to build another house.
Background information
Rusayu One Internally Displaced Camp is the located in western Goma, in Nyiragongo Territory at about 15 Km from Goma, it is the second largest IDP Camp around Goma after Bulengo Camp, and the population is estimated at about 23,000 people. It is one among the 10 officially recognized IDP Camps around Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Like other camps Rusayu One is also affected by the leadership as the current leaders in most of the camps are residents from the local communities but not IDPs. This is believed as one among the reasons there is embezzlement of humanitarian relief, like other camps it is also believed hosts some people from surrounding communities and from Goma who camouflage as IDPs in order to get aid relief and sell it off.
The control of the relief aid is one among the key leading problems of leadership affecting all the camps around Goma. The people we spoke to described the game as just very simple, as leaders you only just to show that you have many people so that when they get food they will divide it with you, so in this process it appears possible for the leaders to shop for people and this sometimes brings tensions among people.
It is therefore believed that the desire to increase the number of people in some places in Rusayu One created a conflict between the leaders and in the process the one who lost the battle was obliged to run away, and left his area he controlled and the people he lead in Rusayu One, it is also believed that the other leaders went CNR Officers bribed them with money in order to force the IDPs to leave these blocks in order to be shared among the leaders.
On Thursday September 7th, 2023 the IDPs were told to shift to other places but they were not allocated the land, so as they were waiting they were surprised to be forced to live.
Such operation did not take into account the requirement of the smooth transfer of people and their things and in dignity, and did not put arrangements to ensure that people have where to stay and they are assisted.
Questions remains, where was CNR when people settled there? People have toiled to build those houses on their own and without help, why were they not supported and why they were supported in order to shift? Who did this profit? What was the interest of IDPs in this operation? What could have been the interest of CNR?
This is what remained after the demolition
