Congo says martial law has brought calm. Yet violence is rising
A Potemkin tour of eastern Congo fails to conceal the scale of bloodshed
Eastern Congo has been on fire, on and off, for three decades. Last year Congo’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, declared a “state of siege” in two especially violent provinces, North Kivu and Ituri. That meant imposing martial law and dispatching generals to replace politicians. The soldiers claim to have restored a measure of peace. “Before we got here, there was almost total insecurity,” says General Johnny Luboya N’Kashama, the governor of Ituri. “People were walking freely in the streets with the heads of their victims.” Now, he suggests, things are much better.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Dispatch from a forgotten war”
From the October 1st 2022 edition
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