GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo—Barihuta Twagirayezu was holding his 4-year-old daughter’s hand tightly when the bullet hit him in the knee. A skirmish had broken out between rebels from the March 23rd Movement, known as the M23, and the Congolese army in his village in eastern Congo in late June. Twagirayezu and his family were trying desperately to reach safety. “Many people have been shot. I was just one of the victims,” he said, his voice steady and unchanging.
It was around 5 p.m., he recalls, and the light outside had begun to grow dim. After being shot and falling to the ground, he heard his wife crying out for help and felt men lift and carry him toward safety. Twagirayezu was subsequently taken to a Red Cross-supported hospital in Goma, where he spoke to World Politics Review while awaiting surgery to remove the bullet from his knee.
“I am suffering, so I can’t do anything for my family,” he said, sitting in a sunbaked tent set up to deal with the hospital’s overflow of patients. “It is very sad.”