D.R. CONGO

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Situation

In our opinion, the main factors of destabilization impeding a durable pacification of the Kivu region are:

  • Impunity still benefiting to so many uneducated leaders who have been involved in corruption offenses and blood crimes
  • Arms sales to illegal gangs & militias
  • Greed for mineral and natural resources of the region, regularly looted by ruthless national and foreign forces
  • Nourished by one or more of the factors above, the separatist inclinations of such or such faction
  • The porous borders allowing foreign armed gangs to wreak havoc on Congolese soil
  • The so-called effectiveness, often insignificant, of the presence of 17,000 MONUSCO peacekeepers, which is a result of the failure of the United Nations in this part of the country.

Objectives

1. Assistance to women victims of rape and/or of sexual violence, orphans, and girl-mothers.

Local partner: Tulizeni Center, Goma, North Kivu

2. Intensify the fight against impunity by allowing the military prosecutor’s office to sit “in the bush” in order to investigate and grant judgement in cases of indictment of soldiers or militiamen suspected of crimes against citizens (murder, rape or sexual violence, torture, physical abuse, other inhumane and degrading acts).

Local partners in South Kivu: Military tribunal and UCPDHO
Local partner in North Kivu: Association Protection and Solidarity

3. Monitoring and alerts on blood crimes, medical assistance to victims. Long-term assistance to elderly people in total deprivation.

Local Partner: ACMEJ

4. Support for young girls who have dropped out of school as a result of war.

Local partner: FEDA, Kazimia

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Achievements 2021

1. Partnership started in October 2015. Tulizeni shelters and protects 98 unaccompanied children. Vivere covers the annual costs of food for 9 children, as well as the costs of administrative regularisation for 47 children abandoned in the bush.

2. Two mobile court were held in Bangwe in April then in Rubanga in May during which six crimes were judged. The 34 operations held since 2006 aim to:

  • Bring to trial suspects of blood crimes or other serious offences
  • Give food for thought to criminals still at large, as well as those who would be tempted to commit future abuses
  • Prove to the population of the territories of Fizi and Uvira that justice is finally on the march to spread awareness on the suffering it has had to undergo by the hand of man


Première: on 29th May we proceeded with the first compensation of ten victims whose right to compensation had been violated.

In North Kivu Vivere supports two lines of work:

  • School rehabilitation of 16 underage rape victims, and
  • Legal defense of 15 victims of sexual violence.


3. Seven civilian victims of assaults by armed men received medical attention. Two activists threatened with death by the militia they denounced were taken to safety. Vivere is providing communications and transportation support to the ACMEJ, which conducts surveys over vast areas of the territory. 4 abandoned and homeless elderly people are now protected in Katogota.

4. Bearing of school fees (primary and secondary) for 19 orphan teenage girls, including several teenage mothers. Two other students are supported in a vocational school in Baraka.