On the one hand of the lake, lovers slide on canoes, friends mount jet skis and families pose for photos at sunset misty. On the other side, less than two kilometers away, corpses were washed up while the ammunition and thrown weapons littered water.
The shore of Lake Kivu in Rwanda offers leisure and relaxation. On the other side of the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the same lake has shown devastation and misery after an armed group called M23 captured the city of Goma by the lake last month. According to the United Nations, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the January offensive.
“It’s peaceful here, unlike there,” said Shalako, a 20-year-old man from Goma who lounging on the shore of Lake Kivu in Rwanda an afternoon this month. Mr. Shalako, who said he had lost a friend in the fighting, had crossed Rwanda for a day at the beach. “We have to relax, to change stage,” he said.
But while Rwanda seems peaceful at home, it feeds war through the border. Thousands of Rwandan troops have invaded the East Congo alongside M23 fighters, which is under the control of Rwanda, according to the United States and the United Nations experts. Rwanda denies supporting the rebels.
To cross Goma to his city sister, Gisenyi, in Rwanda, only takes minutes on the ground, but the two places feel separated from the worlds. In Gisenyi, a city of 50,000 people, the owners of restaurants adorn their properties by the sea with colorful decorations while the smell of roast chicken fills the air. In Goma, a city of two million, the stench of death and the sounds of the sirens have traveled the streets for days.
THE Neighboring countries share a painful story but have little common today.
Rwanda is considered a development model across Africa. A country almost 90 times smaller than the Congo, it sponsors the best European football teams and is known for its high -end seaside resorts, where wealthy tourists remain during expeditions to marvel at gorillas. Being here can give an impression of political stability and wealth, but many say under what the veneer is a surveillance, repression and uneven development.
Congo, despite its vertiginous natural resources, remains in the grip of instability. Its eastern region is home to one of the largest movement attacks in the world, dating from the Rwandan genocide 30 years ago.
“The standard of living is so different,” said theeste Bitangimana, a Rwandan real estate agent and pastor who lives in Gisenyi and works on both sides of the border. “In Congo, the rich are enriched and the government does not care. In Rwanda, we are constantly trying to improve our way of life. »»
Congolese have a different way of describing the gap of wealth between the two nations: exploitation.
The United Nations experts found that 150 tonnes of coltan – from which the key minerals used in the manufacture of smartphones are extracted – were introduced as a smuggling of the Congo and Rwanda by M23 last year.
“We are looted for others to become rich,” said Didier Kambale, pastor in Goma Walking in a Litte de debris street this month. “Why are they coming here?” He asked questions about Rwandan troops. “Do the Congolese wage war abroad?”
Although the chief of Rwanda said that war in eastern Congo is a Congolese problem, the M23 offensive on Goma brought him closer to Rwanda.
In his attempt to defend Goma, the Congolese army launched shells and bombs on the other side of the border in January, perforating Rwandan houses and heartbreaking roofs. Sixteen people were killed and 160 injured in Rwanda. Thousands of people fleeing Goma have found refuge in Rwanda.
Broken glass and wood still littered the floors while the rain fell into Mr. Bitangimana’s house this month. A shell had struck the roof of the house in brick and cement of the real estate agent.
“We pray for the two countries because we have to live in harmony,” he said.
In Gisenyi, the children of the school now speak of the war between the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, and his Congolese counterpart, Felix Tshisekedi.
“I don’t choose a side, it’s too complicated,” said Ariella, a 10 -year -old living in Rwanda with a Congolese father and a Rwandan mother. Sitting at her border origin, Ariella said that she had played dead in her bed for hours one morning during the M23 offensive, fearing that the soldiers would “come to kill us”. The fighting took a break shortly after.
Despite the two different worlds on each side of the shores of Lake Kivu, Gisenyi beach is also the place where people in Rwanda and Congo meet in peace. Shalako, the 20 -year -old, said that he had crossed the border to tell his Rwandan friends that he was safe.
“Politicians want us to believe that we are enemies, but we are brothers,” he said.
In her living room, Ariella stopped her homework to discuss the war. She said that she wanted to visit her aunt who lives in Goma during her next vacation, and “do all kinds of silly things there”.
Sitting in her Spider-Man pajamas, Ariella asked a question about the presidents of the two countries who left a silence in the room: “Why can’t they make peace?”
