Since 26th May, more than 30,000 Congolese expelled from Angola crossed the border into Kahungula, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In response to an alert by the Congolese authorities, an MSF team went to provide healthcare and to assess the situation of the expelled people.
Camps housing displaced peoples litter the landscape. Dem. Republic of Congo, 2008.
Pascale Zintzen/MSF
According to testimonies collected by MSF, the Angolan army surrounds the diamonds mines, where many Congolese migrants dig illegally, and instruct them to leave. These men are led away,
by foot or by truck, to closed compounds and
from there, in groups of a few hundred, to the Congolese border.
The expelled people assisted by MSF in this area have not been victims of systematic sexual violence, as was the case in 2007. However, cases of physical violence have been reported as well as degrading vaginal and anal searches, by Angolan soldiers during the expulsion. "The aim of those searches is to deprive the Congolese population of valuable goods – money or diamonds – before they leave the Angolan territory," explains Bertrand Perrochet, coordinator of the MSF team. "Some patients also tell of other types of physical violence – such as beatings, knife or machete wounds perpetrated by the Angolan armed forces or sometimes by the Angolan population, always with the aim to steal and deprive goods. One man we met there had been beaten by civilians because he refused to give his belt. He died from his wounds in Kahungula."
MSF continues to closely follow the situation of expelled people.
In December 2007 MSF denounced the systematic use of rape and violence by the Angolan army during the expulsions of Congolese migrants working in diamond mines in the Angolan province of Lunda Norte. MSF committed to closely follow up potential expulsions from Angola, in order to assess the health condition of the population on the border and to denounce potential abuses.