In Rebecca Masika Katsuva’s house, center of Synergie des Femmes pour les Victimes de Violences Sexuelles (Women’s Synergy for Victims of Sexual Violence), in Buganga, a nurse from GESOM’s mobile clinic (GESOM, Support and Medical Solidarity Group), stopping today in this region northwest of Lake Kivu, listens to the chest of a rape victim.
This young mother arrived in Buganga a few days ago, from the upper plateaus, with her husband and their young child. It took them three days’ hike to reach the banks of Lake Kivu. One month earlier, while working in the fields with her child, the young woman was abducted by Rwandan Hutu militiamen from the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, in which are found many of the genociders from 1994). Raped again and again by her torturers, she was confined in the forest for several days. A short time after her release, the family decided to flee the village. She suffers from a particularly acute vaginal infection, but above all, from chronic malnutrition, as she was not fed by her captors and had no food during her flight to Buganga. The GESOM nurse, after having listened to her heart and lungs, gives her medication to treat her vaginal infection. However, he is powerless to treat her malnutrition.
GESOM is an organization based in Goma and a member of Synergie. It is a general medical center, although it does specialize in treating trauma and pathologies related to sexual violence. One of its activities is a mobile clinic, which covers an area east of the provincial capital, within a radius of approximately fifty kilometers. The mobile clinic travels around to treat its patients, diagnose new cases presented by Synergie counselors and, as applicable, take them to the GESOM center in Goma.
Due to the small number of physicians and surgeons at its disposal, nurses often stand in for doctors in these mobile clinics, like here in Buganga.
October 2010 – Buganga – DR Congo
© Pierre-Yves GINET