GOMA, North Kivu Province, Congo -- North Kivu province is split into two administrative regions. The Petit Nord in the south and the Grand Nord in the north. Most of the violence that you read about in North Kivu happens in the Petit Nord, where the poorly integrated Congolese army, the FDLR , and other militias prey upon civilians. I traveled recently to Grand Nord—to a town called Beni near the Ugandan border—to better understand the security situation there and the threats facing civilians.

Since the formal end of the regional war that ripped through eastern Congo from 1998 to 2002, Beni has been hit by bouts of violence, but has avoided the chronic instability that plagues areas farther south. Although the security situation in Beni is relatively calm, armed groups there do create instability which leads to abuses against civilians. A Ugandan rebel group called ADF-NALU is a particular concern.

ADF-NALU is actually a pair of Ugandan rebel groups that have been in the Grand Nord since the late 1980s: the Allied Democratic Forces and the[...]

[Published in AidNews - Read the original article]