DR Congo Police Fend For Themselves After Peacekeepers Quit UN Base

Kamanyola, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th Apr, 2024) Doors and locks smashed, power equipment stolen, no fuel, no food, water or electricity ... welcome to what's left of a UN base handed over to the Congolese police just weeks ago by peacekeepers in violence-wracked South Kivu province.

The first phase of what the Democratic Republic of Congo's government said would be an "ordered, responsible and lasting" withdrawal" by MONUSCO forces was due to be completed by April 30.

According to the provincial authorities, peacekeepers have so far left four of the dozen bases in the province, including the post at Kamanyola, which today looks more like a slum than the outpost that Pakistani troops left barely two months ago.

"We have nothing to eat here," says Bruno, one of the policemen deployed to the camp on the Ruzizi plain.

Watched by three colleagues, he is cooking a corn or manioc paste, known locally as foufou, in a pot over a fire on the ground.

Bruno says he begged the ingredients from the nearby Protestant church.

"If I don't share it, my colleagues will die of hunger," he adds.

The small group proceeds to wander through what was a UN base just two months ago.

They pass by the helicopter landing pad where corn now grows nearly two metres (six feet) high.

"I left my wife and children in Uvira (75 kilometres further south), they are suffering down there and we have been put in cardboard houses," he rages, punching the outside wall of the prefabricated dormitories.

Inside, sitting on a mattress, a man smokes a cannabis joint.

He's in civilian clothing but is a member of the police force's "special intervention unit".

The man admits that with fellow officers he stole mattresses during the February 28 handover ceremony at the base attended by senior Congolese ranks and top UN officials.

"If we hadn't done that, today we would be sleeping on the wooden floor and there are nails."