When J., our friend who lives in Ritsona camp, video-calls us, we do not immediately understand what she is saying, but we see she is outside the camp with many other people. We hear a big confusion in the background and we perceive from her voice that she is worried.
No doubt: something is happening at the camp and we need to be there; we do not wait longer and immediately take the car.
The police stops us few kilometers from the camp because the way was closed, we leave the car and go forward by foot: our friends are waiting for us and we want to be there with them.
Once we arrive we see many Congolese people outside the camp, especially women; some of them shout, some others cry, some pick up rubber pieces to light a fire: “a guy’s dead, he has four kids”, they say, “it’s just carelessness, this is mere racism”.
They say the evening before they called the ambulance at 5 p.m. but it only came in the morning, when it was too late.
He died in the meantime.
“There’s no food, there’s no water, no international protection, this is the result, people die in here”, women voices keep shouting and saying to Congolese people to come out.