Ituri Province has seen over 1.6 million people displaced by rebel attacks alleged as crimes against humanity by the UN human rights office.
Fataki displacement camp is seen from the air. The scale of the conflict is unimaginable; over 60 displacement sites dot the land, an entire community on the move, persecuted, and frail.
Rachel*, 17, ‘We had to flee, the attackers came in the night, killed everyone they were looking for’.
Christian*, 10. ‘Armed men killed people on the spot. We fled to another village, we couldn’t find my mum’.
A single wall stands in the midst of a village razed by CODECO rebels in Djugu Territory.
Jean*, 11. ‘They set our house on fire… we spent the night in the bush. Here in the camp we suffer, food comes rarely. My life today doesn’t interest me much, a lot of my friends have died, sometimes I think about them’.
Emilie*,15. ‘I saw attackers kill, cut throats, shoot and steal. We slept in the forest but they chased us. I would like to go home, in camps we don’t have enough, no food’.
Families take refuge in a chapel in the town of Drodro, Djugu Territory. Thousands have fled here in search of respite from attacks.
Communities in search of firewood, water and food close to their displacement camp. Rebels in the countryside will abduct and kill anyone caught foraging in their territory.
Georgine, 32, who fled conflict with her family. ‘Still in the village, we led a good and normal life, now we have no work and my children cannot study’.
Prisca, 6*, ‘There was a cracking of bullets and machete cuts, we had to leave, I saw a lot of corpses. At least at the camp there is no noise of guns’.
Bule displacement camp in Djugu Territory.
Families living outdoors in the town of Drodro, Djugu Territory. Thousands have fled here in search of safety, but the town is overcrowded, with no resources to keep the displaced in good health.
Red flowers hang from a tree close to a displacement camp, Djugu Territory.
Children play in the landscape by Fataki, a displacement camp hosting thousands who have fled the conflict.