A volcanic start
When I prepared for my internship, I took into account many risks: the health risk during the period of COVID as well as malaria, the security risk with the existing insecurity in the city and the armed groups fighting for the control of the mining resources in the whole eastern part of the country, the psychological risk of having to deal with beneficiaries with very difficult itineraries and living conditions. But I had dismissed the volcanic risk a little too quickly.
On Saturday, May 22, the Nyiragongo volcano, considered the most dangerous volcano in Africa, and located about 20 kilometers north of the city of Goma, erupted. A few hours of anguish followed, as I live in an area known to be the “natural” path of lava flows. And as people fled their homes, remembering the last eruption in 2002, which killed 245 people and covered almost 13% of the city of Goma, each one leaving with a bundle and a mattress towards the west of the city or towards the Rwandan border, I wondered what to do.
Finally reassured by my employer’s instructions, I did not have to evacuate my home, but I knew that the days to come would be difficult, not so much for me as for the people of Goma. Indeed, the days that followed saw the multiplication of earthquakes, up to 5.4 on the Richter scale (and I can assure you that it makes your bed move at night…), and the Provincial Governor finally decided to evacuate 10 of the 18 districts of the city, not only those affected by the lava but also those at risk in case of another eruption.
After only two weeks of internship, I found myself in a team that had to face a triple crisis: to face our own fears of course, but above all to respond to the situation of nearly 25,000 people who had seen their homes destroyed, not to mention the schools and health centers affected, as well as the water and electricity infrastructures, and finally to bring aid to the displaced people, numbering nearly 300,000, mainly located in the neighboring town of Sake.
The challenges were immense: to allow these hundreds of thousands of people to have safe and clean access to water, in an area where cholera is endemic, to give the most vulnerable people the necessary to survive (sanitary kits, female hygiene kits, household kits, especially for cooking), to assess the needs in terms of education, but also to allow more than 1,300 so-called unaccompanied children, who lost their parents in the panic of the departure, to be reunited with their families as soon as possible.
In addition to these programmatic challenges, there were logistical difficulties: first, the fact that the lava had cut off one of the region’s food supply routes; second, the smoke had closed the airport to both planes and helicopters; and third, the fact that the vast majority of humanitarian actors had decided to relocate their staff, thereby reducing the footprint of the potential response.
