24 August 1998 is etched in people’s memories. On that day, marauding militias attacked 15 villages and arbitrarily and with indescribable violence killed over 1000 civilians who were defencelessly at the mercy of the massacre. Those who managed to escape fled into the surrounding forests – and stayed there. People cannot and do not want to go back – the trauma is too deep, the burden of memory too heavy. Never experience anything like that again! Since then, they have been displaced people in their own country.

Kasika, a place of crime, is located on Route National No. 2 and was therefore easy prey for the militias. In the hope that areas that are more difficult to access will offer at least a little more security, the survivors have moved to small, remote villages.

Life there is correspondingly barren, cut off and arduous. Most of them have lost everything and have hardly been able to rebuild anything. These are the people who are suffering the most and most sustainably from the consequences of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the eastern Congo region.

We have decided to help those people who are so badly affected. In Kigogo, one of the areas where the displaced people have been living since then, we have organised our largest campaign to date – with success: we have given out 200 goats to 100 families. And so far we have received 70 young animals back, which have been redistributed. When we have enough money again, we will repeat the campaign in another area.