Refugees tell of terror and heartbreak after fleeing DRC violence

Atosha winced as she recalled the 15 minutes she had spent in the fast-flowing Rusizi River, which separates the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Burundi, on a Friday night in late February.

- Carlos Mureithi

"I was terrified," the 23-year-old said of her journey of about 130 metres, spent clinging to a makeshift float alongside a young man she had paid to take her to the Burundian side. "It was my first time crossing that river and I had no option."

Her relief on reaching the riverbank quickly turned to anguish, however, when she learned her younger sisters, aged 10 and 14, whom she sent across first, had been swept away.

"I stood there and started crying," said Atosha, one of tens of thousands of Congolese refugees sheltering in a stadium in Burundi's Cibitoke province.

The people risking their lives to cross to Burundi are fleeing conflict in eastern DRC, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group has made swift advances since January in an escalation of a long-running conflict. The roots of the violence can be traced to the spillover into DRC of Rwanda's 1994 genocide and the ongoing struggle for control of DRC's vast mineral resources.

Atosha said Congolese soldiers retreating from the city of Bukavu had entered her hometown in Bafuliiru Chiefdom to the south on 14 February. Many were wounded and their arrival spread panic.

According to Atosha, a solider who had lost an eye in the fighting told her: "If there's a way for you to go to Burundi, do it today because the fighting is coming here tonight and it's bad. People are getting killed and women and girls are being raped." As gunfire echoed around the town, Atosha's family agonised over what to do. Days later, her father told her to travel to the border, just a couple of miles to the east, with her sisters. Her parents would follow.

Atosha gathered the children, and they left without any belongings. "With gunshots ringing, you can't even get the strength to pick up a pen," she said.