Drivers Stuck For Days On East DR Congo's Nightmare Roads

Travelling through the DR Congo's volatile east takes days, with ramshackle roads and bridges, bandits and militia making journeys a nightmare

Kamanyola, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Mar, 2024) Travelling through the DR Congo's volatile east takes days, with ramshackle roads and bridges, bandits and militia making journeys a nightmare.

Unlike well-kept Rwandan roads, the road between Bukavu and Uvira, the two main cities of the eastern South Kivu province, is pockmarked with potholes and craters.

Burundi closed its border with Rwanda in January, cutting off the safest and most efficient roads for transporting goods into the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"All the roads are impossible to travel, we are used to suffering," said Albert Muganguzi, one of many lorry drivers stranded for days on the 100-kilometre (62-mile) stretch bordering Rwanda and Burundi.

Muganguzi had been stuck in the mud for three days after trying to cross the Shange River, where a dilapidated bridge had washed away.

Many bridges in the east of Congo cannot withstand the passage of heavy vehicles or the force of overflowing water from torrential rains.

At the wheel of his Howo truck ferrying tonnes of fish and food from Uvira, Nathanael Kanune was also stuck in a queue of a dozen vehicles.

"The goods are going to rot, they will not last long," Kanune warned.

While goods are stopped at the edge of the river on their way to Burundi's economic capital Bujumbura, vehicles queue up on the opposite side of the bank.

"Take it easy. Get in line, or you are all going to fall down," an official shouted to the disembarking passengers as they hurried across a makeshift wooden footbridge.