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Congo in Conversation
Goma, DRC, July 13, 2020. Protesters are arrested by a police officer in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on July 13 while denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese authorities have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests. © Moses Sawasawa for Fondation Carmignac

Congo Lifts Coronavirus State of Emergency

byMoses Sawasawa
July 24, 2020
in Access to clean water
Reading Time: 5 mins read

Goma, DRC, July 13, 2020. Protesters are arrested by a police officer in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on July 13 while denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese authorities have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests. © Moses Sawasawa for Fondation Carmignac

Congo this week lifted health emergency measures put in place on March 24 to contain the spread of coronavirus. The measures closed borders, schools and businesses and caused economic hardship in a country where most of the population of 95-million lives on less than $2 per day.

Shops, banks, restaurants and bars were allowed to reopen on Wednesday while public transport resumed and large gatherings are now permitted. Schools and universities will now be allowed to reopen on August 3, and airports, ports, borders and places of worship on August 15, Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi announced in a televised speech on Tuesday.

Video by Moses Sawasawa, July 2020, for the Fondation Carmignac

Congo has recorded 8,720 infections including 201 deaths and Tshisekedi warned that people still needed to take precautions such as wearing masks and washing hands.

I spent time with some residents of Goma over the past weeks as they shared with me how the pandemic was affecting their lives. While the population has struggled to cope economically, Congolese authorities have also come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests.

  • Goma, DRC, July 8, 2020. Protesters are arrested by police in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on July 8 while denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese authorities have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests. © Moses Sawasawa for Fondation Carmignac
  • Goma, DRC, July 13, 2020. Protesters are arrested by police in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on July 13 while denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese authorities have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests. © Moses Sawasawa for Fondation Carmignac
  • Goma, DRC, July 13, 2020. Protesters are arrested by police in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on July 13 while denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese authorities have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests. © Moses Sawasawa for Fondation Carmignac
[1] Goma, DRC, July 8, 2020. Protesters are arrested by police in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on July 8 while denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese authorities have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests. © Moses Sawasawa for Fondation Carmignac [2] Goma, DRC, July 13, 2020. Protesters are arrested by police in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on July 13 while denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese authorities have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests. © Moses Sawasawa for Fondation Carmignac [3] Goma, DRC, July 13, 2020. Protesters are arrested by police in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on July 13 while denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese authorities have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful critics, journalists, and political party members while using pandemic state of emergency measures as a pretext to curb political protests. © Moses Sawasawa for Fondation Carmignac

“The administration of President Felix Tshisekedi in the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken a serious downturn in respect for human rights in 2020”, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published this week. “Dozens of people who have criticized government policies, including on social media, have faced intimidation and threats, beatings, arrests, and, in some cases, prosecution.”

The HRW report listed a series of violent incidents by security forces, including the killing of protestors denouncing the nomination of an election commission chief accused of rigging past elections in favour of former President Joseph Kabila. Attacks on journalists and peaceful critics are an “assault on democracy,” HRW said, and called on Tshisekedi to “stop resorting to his predecessor’s tools of repression”.

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Moses Sawasawa

Moses Sawasawa

Moses Sawasawa is a freelance photographer based in Goma, covering humanitarian issues, culture, health, and daily life. He is the cofounder of Collectif Goma Oeil, which promotes positive images of Congo.

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  • 📣 TALK - TODAY, April 15 at 10:00 AM EDT / 04:00 PM French time
 
Join us over on #VIIInsider with @finbarroreilly and @bernadettevivuya ⁠! They will join @ZiyahGafic to discuss their collaboration and the project
  • “It’s been 26 years since we came to venerate our Pope, and this is the only way to mourn, always chic, well groomed, well dressed, and well scented.” said Gael Basaula, who was born in Brazzaville and who was wearing a colored sequin jacket and dyed yellow hair.
 
Each year, on February 10, Sapeurs in Kinshasa return to their origins. On the official Day of the Sape, they gather in all their finery at a cemetery in city’s Gombe neighborhood to pay tribute at the grave of Stervos Niarcos, often considered the official founder of modern sapeurism. Also known as “the Pope,” Niarcos died in Paris in 1995.
 
📷  Kinshasa, DRC, February 2021 © @makangarajustin for @fondationcarmignac
 
🔗 Read full article “Congo’s Sapeurs Revisit Their Roots” online. Link in bio.
 
🇫🇷
 
« Il y a 26 ans que nous venons ici vénérer notre Pape, et c’est le seul moyen d’exprimer notre deuil, toujours chics, soignés, bien habillés et parfumés. » témoigne Gael Basaula, natif de Brazzaville arborant une veste pailletée multicolore et des cheveux teints en jaune.
 
Chaque année, le 10 février, les Sapeurs de Kinshasa retournent à leurs racines. Pour la date officielle du Jour de la Sape, ils se rassemblent vêtus de leurs plus beaux atours dans un cimetière du quartier de Gombe et y saluent la mémoire de Stervos Niarcos, souvent considéré comme le fondateur officiel de la Sape moderne. Baptisé le « Pape », Niarcos est mort à Paris en 1995.
 
📷 Kinshasa, RDC, 10 février 2021 © @makangarajustin pour la @fondationcarmignac
 
🔗 Découvrez l’article « Les Sapeurs du Congo revisitent leurs origines » dans son intégralité sur notre blog. Lien en bio.
 
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  • FORESTS
 
In the continuity of the International Day of #Forests, we invite you this week to explore in images the vision of Tommaso Protti, 10th Carmignac Award laureate, on the Brazilian Amazon.
 
📷 Araribóia, Maranhão. Paulo Paulino Guajajara,
25 years old, a.k.a Lobo Mau (“bad wolf”), was a member of the Guajajara forest guard on patrol at the Araribóia indigenous reserve in Maranhão State. He was murdered on November 1, 2019, by illegal loggers. @tomprotti for @fondationcarmignac.
 
🇫🇷
 
Dans la continuité de la journée internationale des forêts, nous vous proposons cette semaine d
  • FORESTS

In the continuity of the International Day of #Forests, we invite you this week to explore in images the vision of Tommaso Protti, 10th Carmignac Award laureate, on the Brazilian Amazon.
 
🇫🇷

Dans la continuité de la journée internationale des forêts, nous vous proposons cette semaine d
  • FORESTS
 
In the continuity of the International Day of #Forests, we invite you this week to explore in images the vision of Tommaso Protti, 10th Carmignac Award laureate, on the Brazilian Amazon.
 
📷 Jamari National Forest, Rondônia, May 19, 2019. A military police officer stands in what was previously an illegal mining site in the Jamari National Forest. This protected forest area is constantly targeted by illegal miners and loggers and requires round-the-clock supervision. The police officers provide armed assistance to park rangers who refused to be photographed. Once the loggers have removed the wood from the forest, it is taken to nearby irregular sawmills. Using falsified documents, the wood is sent to Brazil’s industrialized South or abroad to Europe, China or the United States. In recent years, invasions and illegal logging of protected forest areas have increased. Almost 10% of Brazil’s national territory is made up of protected forest.
 
🇫🇷 
 
Dans la continuité de la journée internationale des forêts, nous vous proposons cette semaine d
  • Traditional Mai Mai militiamen ride on a motorcycle in the village of Mabuku in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, an area infested with armed groups. Some Mai Mai groups have attacked Ebola treatment centres and have threatened to kill Ebola responders. The effort to stamp out this Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, the second largest in recorded history, took nearly two years, as front-line health workers struggled against rising hostility and distrust.
 
Mabuku, DRC, 2019. @finbarroreilly
 
🇫🇷
 
Patrouille motorisée de miliciens Maï-Maï dans cette région infestée de groupes armés. Certains groupes Maï-Maï ont attaqué des centres de traitement Ebola et menacé de tuer leurs personnels. La lutte contre l’épidémie d’Ebola, la deuxième la plus importante de l’histoire, a mobilisé pendant plus de deux ans des personnels de santé confrontés à une vague d’hostilité et de défiance.
 
Mabuku, RDC, 2019. @finbarroreilly
 
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