DRC: Bukavu puts to rest 27 victims of a school fire

Vatican News.

The Church’s Agenzia Fides reports that six of the victims killed in the fire were adults, while the rest were minors. These were pupils at the school affected by the blaze. The grief of the population is compounded by anguish over a series of “mysterious” fires that have been affecting the city for at least a week. The City of Bukavu is currently under the control of M23 rebels.

‘Mysterious fires’

According to a statement from the provincial coordination of Civil Society of South Kivu, sent to Agenzia Fides, “in less than a week, hundreds of homes, two schools, a church and a row of 66 shops in the Kadutu market have been reduced to ashes.”

The fires include 40 homes in Ponzi, where three people died, leaving 174 families homeless in Nyamugo. Citing figures from the Congolese administration based in Uvira, the last stronghold of the Kinshasa government in South Kivu, the statement says that 2,500 homes were destroyed by fire between July and August this year.

“This is a humanitarian catastrophe,” Bukavu’s civil society says, calling on the M23 administration to account for the situation.

In particular, civil society members are asking where the fire services are and why the causes of the fires have not been investigated.

“Every fire without an investigation is a form of complicity,” the statement says.

Taxes and the lack of services

Civil society representatives also point out that the administration controlled by M23 is forcibly collecting taxes from the local population without providing any services in return, particularly to those who have lost their homes in the fires.

Bukavu’s civil society is appealing to the international community and the authorities of the DRC to assist the 12,000 people who are in a situation of “extreme vulnerability.”

The statement concludes by calling for urgent assistance for communities affected by the fires, the deployment of fire engines donated by a well-wisher, and the reconstruction of the two destroyed schools.