Katanga Province, D.R.Congo
The Forgotten People of the Forgotten War
March 16-17, 2006
Malemba - Out of the three places that this UN/OCHA special mission envoy visited, this town/village was the most stable and well routed. Malemba has a source of food and water directly from the Congo River, which Dubie and Mitwaba lack. Also, the key to this situation was that the FARDC commander for this area seemingly had a tremendous amount of control over his soldiers, which were doing more or less of what they were supposed to be doing, protecting the people. One of the main reasons why the military situation was better is due to the presence of a food source. All of the Congolese FARDC soldiers are underpaid and underfed. Thus, in most cases they succumb to their inner demons and turn on the people that they are supposed to protect. Malemba was the exception, by no means the typical situation in Katanga.