11th Carmignac Photojournalism Award

Congo in Conversation

Congo in Conversation

Dieudonne Dirole

Dieudonne Dirole (Dio) is a Congolese photographer based in Bunia. He started photography in 2015 when his country was experiencing serious human rights violations. He has been arrested several times and threatened by the authorities, but continues to document events in the DRC.

Bunia, DRC, September 4, 2020. A fighter from the CODECO militia (C) holds rocket-propelled grenades as government soldiers take up positions while crowds of people look on after more than 100 heavily armed militiamen caused alarm by entering the eastern Congolese city of Bunia last Friday. Drawn mostly from the Lendu ethnic group, CODECO is accused by the United Nations of committing widespread and systematic killings, beheadings, rape, and other atrocities that the world body has said may amount to crimes against humanity. © Dieudonné Dirole for Fondation Carmignac

Politics and Insecurity

Militia Incursion Stirs Fear in Bunia

I got the call from a friend at around 6am on Friday: dozens of CODECO militia fighters had infiltrated our...

byDieudonne Dirole

September 8, 2020

Northeastern Ituri Province, DRC, February 2020.The likeness of a Congolese soldier stands in a field near the village of Tche in Congo's northeastern Ituri Province in mid-February. With few government forces in the area villagers from the Hema community erected the likeness in the hopes of warding off armed members of the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO), an armed political-religious sect drawn from the Lendu ethnic group that has been blamed for a wave of killings in the province over the past two years. Conflict between the Lendu, mainly farmers, and the Hema, herders and traders, has a long history in the gold and oil-rich province, with tens of thousands of people killed between 1999 and 2003. Militia attacks have killed at least 444 civilians in Ituri since March and displaced more than 200,000 people since the beginning of the year, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which cited United Nations sources. A January UN report said some of the deaths could constitute a "crime against humanity". The army launched an offensive in January against militias operating in Ituri as part of a wider offensive launched last October, and announced that CODECO’s leader, Justin Ngudjolo, was killed in late March. The group has since split into different factions and continues to kill civilians across the province, according to HRW, which said Congolese security forces fighting the militia have also committed serious abuses, including extrajudicial executions. © Dieudonne Dirole for Fondation Carmignac

Politics and Insecurity

Conflict Reignites in Congo’s Ituri Region

I found the woman giving birth on a dusty road just outside Bunia in Congo’s northeastern Ituri Province late last...

byDieudonne Dirole