The FARDC gave Monday May 5 to Beni (North Kivu) twenty-eight civilians to local civil society. These are ex-hostages as well as children out of armed groups. The children, eighteen in number, were entrusted to the child’s protection section of Monusco, which then gave them to a local organization specializing in the care and reinstatement of children.
The president of civil society calls on the community to welcome them without stigmatizing them.
These children come from local armed forces and groups active in the region, after their leaders were made aware of the child in the family and at the school.
Adults, seven men and women, are civilians who had escaped the hands of the ADF rebels in mayangose, following the military pressure jointly carried out by the FARDC and the Ugandan army (UPDF). One of them testifies:
« I was caught by the ADF-Nalu to mayangose, then brought back to the bush. The army has already done much. People do not understand, but we have experienced the reality of ADFs. We have seen the ADFs, we went into several of their already abandoned camps. And we understood that the army has already done a lot, which people have not yet understood ».
Pépin Kavota, the president of the local civil society, who received them, launched this call to the community:
« The community of the city of Beni, the territory of Beni, the city of Butembo, Lubero, should really receive them without traumatizing them. Because they leave a place where they should never have been. But, thanks to God, they returned with the family. And so, we have the obligation, as a community and families, to welcome them to promote their reintegration. »
The children were given by the Monusco child protection section to a partner organization of UNICEF for transitional care. For their part, adults were directly reintegrated into the community via the basic executives of their respective districts.
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