Years of war in Congo create a dire mental health crisis with little support available
(16 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lushagala, Democratic Republic of Congo – 27 August 2024
1. Nelly Shukuru sits with other women during a meeting with a psychologist with Action Against Hunger
2. Nelly Shukuru walks into her temporary home at the Lushagala IDP camp
3. Shukuru stands in her home
4. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Nelly Shukuru, internally displaced refugee:
“I thought about my children. If one day I kill myself, my children will be here without me. While I was thinking about this, someone knocked on my door. He greeted me and asked me what I wanted to do. I explained it to him, and after he asked me not to do it, I stopped.”
5. Shukuru in her home at the Lushagala IDP camp
6. Various – Shukuru and other women sing during a meeting with a psychologist
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kanyaruchinya, Democratic Republic of Congo – 27 August 2024
7. View of the Kanyaruchinya IDP camp
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lushagala, Democratic Republic of Congo – 27 August 2024
8. Women walk to a meeting with an Action Against Hunger psychologist
9. SOUNDBITE (French) Innocent Ntamuheza, psychologist, Action Against Hunger:
“From here to there, there is war, there are other problems. The numbers increase everyday because the community is going through a lot of difficulty.”
10. Various – women sing during a meeting with a psychologist
STORYLINE:
For Nelly Shukuru, there was no way out. The fighting that forced her from her home, the squalid conditions in the displacement camp in eastern Congo, the hunger, all felt inescapable. The 51-year-old planned to kill herself.
“I thought about my children. If one day I commit suicide, my children will be here without me,” she said.
She said a neighbor stopped her just in time.
“While I was thinking about this, someone knocked on my door. He greeted me and asked me what I wanted to do. I explained it to him, and after he asked me not to do it, I stopped.”
Years of conflict in eastern Congo have created a dire mental health crisis. Aid groups say the number of people seeking care has spiked as fighting intensifies. Some of the worst affected struggle to survive in cramped, violent displacement sites that aren’t conducive to recovery.
The number of people who received psychosocial support in camps around the main city of Goma increased more than 200% between January and June compared to the same period last year — from 6,600 to more than 20,000 — according to aid group Action Against Hunger.
The number of people reporting suicidal thoughts has jumped from about five a month at the beginning of the year to more than 120, it said.
More than 100 armed groups have been vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern Congo near the border with Rwanda. The violence has escalated as the M23 rebel group, backed by Rwanda, has re-emerged. The fighting has displaced millions. Over 600,000 shelter in camps near Goma.
Another woman, who spoke anonymously as AP does not identify victims of sexual assault, said she started experiencing suicidal thoughts after being raped. She lives in a cramped displacement camp in Kanyaruchinya, and says she believes if the conflict hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t have been raped.
“I had gone to the field to work when I came across bandits who raped me. When they finished raping me, I wanted to commit suicide,” she said.
She credits the doctors at the Kanyaruchinya health center with saving her life. “They advised me; without their intervention, I would have died. They were the ones who consoled me.”
“The numbers increase everyday.”
AP video by Justin Kabumba
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