Скачать или смотреть UN aid chief meets displaced people in eastern Congo

(25 Jun 2025)
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
SHASHA NORTH KIVU DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - 25 June 2025
1. Various of Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) arriving in Shasha Northern Kivu.
2. Fletcher greeting men and women from the local community who have returned to their villages
3. Fletcher seated next to the Humanitarian Coordinator in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr. Bruno Lemarquis.
4. Various of Fletcher listens to local community members from Shasha
5. Shasha resident Kahindo Bihira sits and listens
6. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Kahindo Bihira, Shasha resident:
“When I returned, I found my house destroyed. I took refuge at my neighbour's house, but the NRC helped me with cash that allowed me to gradually feed the children properly.”
7. Various of Shasha Village
8. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Maombi Pascaline, Shasha resident:
"We didn't want to go back; it was them [M23] who forced us to return, because we knew we had a government. But when they arrived, they asked us to go home, because the war was over. They said that those who did not obey would be considered enemies, and we thought it best to go back home after hearing that.”
9. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Kasiwa Rusezera, Shasha resident:
"Before, we lived a good life because we lived without the war, but everything we owned was over because of the war. Today, we live on aid, and without it, we cannot live. "
10. Various of Kasiwa Rusezera in Shasha Village
11. Various of Shasha Village
STORYLINE:
The United Nations humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, visited displaced families in Shasha village in Congo’s North Kivu province on Tuesday.

The visit follows the M23 rebel group’s seizure of Goma, the provincial capital, in late January, intensifying a decades-long conflict that has displaced more than 4.6 million people. In the aftermath, rebels shut down displacement camps in the city, forcing families to return to the villages they had fled.

"We didn't want to go back; it was them [M23] who forced us to return, because we knew we had a government. But when they arrived, they asked us to go home, because the war was over." said Shasha resident Maombi Pascaline.

In Shasha, many returnees found their homes looted or destroyed, with little to no assistance waiting for them.

Aid groups say the forced returns have worsened already dire conditions. Many had relied on support from the U.S. Agency for International Development before the Trump administration canceled its programs.

Money was a lifeline for Shasha resident Kahindo Bihira, “When I returned, I found my house destroyed. I took refuge at my neighbour's house, but the NRC helped me with cash that allowed me to gradually feed the children properly.”

The decades-long fighting in Congo’s mineral-rich east is one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts—what the United Nations calls one of the world’s most protracted and serious humanitarian crises.

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