By Oyintari Ben
Few people are partaking in the feasts and celebrations they usually save for Christmas in the enormous displacement camps north of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
More fortunate locals snooze on the floors of churches and schools. But many other people have constructed houses from scraps of tarpaulin and sticks. Hunger is widespread, and a spike in cholera cases is the result of poor hygiene.
Olive Pandezi, 35, was carrying rosary beads as she made her way to her improvised home in Kanyaruchinya, a hillside neighbourhood close to Goma that was teeming with displaced people. “I can’t rejoice because I don’t have anything to eat,” she said.
It is a typical feeling. Mother of three Justine Muhindo, 25, stated: “We’re rejoicing with sorrow because of conflict and poverty.”
Sifa, her neighbour, recalled how on Christmas Day, which fell on a Sunday, a group of ladies would typically pool their resources to buy a cow to be butchered.
The mother of four said on Christmas Eve, “This will no longer happen. “How can we celebrate without clothing or food?”
Many remain stoic despite the hardships endured by those who fled in their wake and are now camped just kilometers from the front lines.
An elderly woman identified as Nyiranzabimana in Kanyaruchinya told the news agency that she did not know where her next meal would come from but that she was grateful to have survived.
We are happy to see that we are still alive, she said.
Local aid organizations organized a food drive on Christmas Eve in Kanyaruchinya, and volunteers wearing Santa hats distributed food and toys to small children.
The leader of one of these organizations, Camille Ntoto, stated that everyone should celebrate Christmas.
One of the things we can do, he continued, is to be kind, generous, and compassionate to one another.
A displaced person in Kanyaruchinya named Josephine Riziki claimed that the Christmas relief effort had restored smiles to the faces of the populace. “By the grace of God, there are benefactors who thought of us,” she said.
