(ANS – Goma) – Fr Piero Gavioli, Rector of the Don Bosco Centre at Goma-Ngangi, reports the latest news on the situation in Northern Kivu: fortunately the truce between army and rebels has been respected during these past few days. He urges us, however, not to switch off from the situation in the area and to continue to draw attention to it. We should be indignant at what is happening and we should make others aware of it.

We have heard no shooting this past week. The truce is being respected. Some say M23 are taking advantage of it to re-arm. The Congolese army is also strengthening its position. We hope and pray there will be no more shooting. The African Intervention Force should be in place by the end of July. We do not believe that this will solve all the problems. What we are asking for is a bit more calm, to be able to travel to the north, and to go back to work in the countryside.

The Don Bosco Centre has resumed normal activities. We have not taken in displaced people. The humanitarian agencies say that the Centre is too near the frontline. To bring thousands of people together here would be to expose them to significant risk.

About twenty adults and some children camped in the local church. Gradually they are leaving to go back home or to the large refugee camp at Mugunga, where assistance is better organized. While they were camped near the Don Bosco Centre, we gave them water and medical aid to the sick. “The people who are displaced, refugees and fugitives, are today the body of Christ,” Pope Francis said on 24 May last, to participants in the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Ministry to  Migrants and Itinerants.

“The Church is a mother and her motherly care is shown in her particular tenderness and closeness towards those who are forced to flee their own country.  They have been uprooted and not yet integrated. This tension destroys the person. Christian compassion – “suffering with” – is expressed first of all in an effort to know what forces people to leave their country and, where necessary, to speak on behalf of people who cannot themselves make their cry of sorrow and oppression heard. [...] Their condition cannot leave us indifferent. We, as Church, know that it is by healing the wounds of refugees, displaced persons and the victims of human trafficking, that we put into practice the commandment of love left us by Jesus, when he identified with the stranger, the suffering, all the innocent victims of violence and exploitation.  We should read often Chapter 25 of St Matthew’s Gospel, which speaks of the final judgment.”                                                             

A radio journalist interviewed me recently by telephone and asked me: “What can we do in Italy to help the displaced?” I answered, “First of all, break the silence, speak about what is happening, let people know their situation, become indignant at the silence which ignores their plight.”

The Greek poet Elytis said, “Poets do not have power to change the world, but they can change people’s awareness and awareness leads to action.” This is a duty that falls to all of us.
 
Published 31/05/2013