DR Congo: Lasting Effects of War Destroy Children’s Future
Source: IPS News
Five years into democracy, with the elections just a few weeks away, the majority of Congolese children continue to face a bleak future.
Years of bitter and bloody war in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have destroyed thousands of families, forcing them into abject poverty and giving scores of children no choice but to live on the streets – as beggars, thugs and drug addicts.
Naino Riziki sits on the only chair in her small, rickety shack built from planks and rusted, bent-open petrol cans in Kabutembu informal settlement, one of the worst addresses in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in eastern DRC.