DRC: ‘Why is the world looking away?’

‘Those who live in Goma live in fear. They do not know what is next. They ask why the international community has looked the other way.’

Those are the words of someone I saw in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) just a few months ago – and who, with his family, is now out of his home, having being compelled to flee as rebel forces advanced.

Although I had visited DRC several times before, the trip last September to Goma, Congo’s largest city in the east, was my first to that particular location. I was travelling to meet members of the Anglican Church of Congo and as we drove through the crowded streets, I asked my host what locals feared most. I was expecting him to say the threat of incursion by M23 rebels who had become increasingly active in the region.