On the one hand of the lake, lovers glide on canons, friends drive nozzles and families posing for paintings at the blurry sunset. On the other hand, less than two miles away, the dead bodies werehed up to the shore, while the ammunition and the discarded weapons were lagging water.
The coast of Lake Kiva in Rwanda offers leisure and relaxation. Through the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the same lake showed devastation and misery after the armed group called M23 caught the lakes of the city of Gom last month. Almost 3000 people were killed in the offensive in January, according to the United Nations.
“It’s peaceful here, unlike there,” said Exauce Shalako, a 20-year-old man from Gom, who was resting one afternoon on the coast of Lake Kiva in Rwanda. Mr. Shalako, who said he had lost his friend in the fight, moved to Rwand on the day on the beach. “We have to rest, change the scene,” he said.
But while Rwanda seems calm at home, it encourages war across the border. Thousands of Rwande troops attacked the Eastern Congo together with the M23 fighters, which is under control of Rwanda, to the United States and experts of the United Nations. Rwanda denies the support of the rebels.
The transition from Goma to their sister town of Gisenyi in Rwanda lasts only a few minutes around the mainland, but two places feel the worlds. In Gisenyi, a city of 50,000, the owners of the restaurant decorate their properties on the beach with colorful decorations while the scent of roasted chicken fills the air. In a bunch of two million, the stench of death and the sounds of sirens floated the streets for days.
IN Neighboring countries share painful history, but these days they have little in common.
Rwanda is considered a model of development throughout Africa. Earth almost 90 times smaller than Congo, sponsoring top European football teams and is known for its top resorts, where wealthy tourists remain during the expedition to admire Gorillas. Because it is here, it can give the impression of political stability and wealth, but many say that under that veneer there is a widespread control, repression and unequal development.
Congo, despite dizzying natural resources, remains to be tormented by instability. His eastern region is the home of one of the world’s largest displacement crises, dating after 30 years of Ruannan genocide.
“Life standards are so different,” said Théoneste Bitangiman, a real estate agent in Rwanda and Pastor who lives in Gisenyi and works on both sides of the border. “In Congo, the rich become richer and the government doesn’t care. In Rwanda, we are constantly trying to improve the way we live.”
The Conges have a different way of describing the gap of wealth between the two nations: exploitation.
The United Nations experts have found that 150 tons of Coltan – of which the key minerals used in the production of smartphones – smuggling from Congo IU Rwanda last year.
“We have been robbed to be enriching others,” said Didier Kambala, Pastor in the Gomi Walking on a street covered with debris this month. “Why come here?” He asked about Rwanda’s troops. “Is the war abroad?”
Although Rwanda’s leader said that war in Eastern Congo was a problem for Congo, the M23 offensive brought a step closer to Rwanda.
In an attempt to defense of Goma, the Congenian army launched shells and bombs across the border in January, punching the homes of Rwanda and opening the roofs. Sixteen people were killed and 160 injured in Rwanda. Thousands of people running away from Goma found refuge in Rwanda.
The broken glass and wood were still pouring the floors as the rain fell into the home of Mr. Bitangiman this month. The shell hit the roof of the brick and the cement house of the real estate agent.
“We pray for two countries, because we have to live in accordance,” he said.
In Gisenyi, children at school are now talking about the war between President Rwanda, Paul Kagame and his Congole colleague, Felix Tshiseeked.
“I don’t choose the side, it’s too complicated,” said Ariella, a 10 -year -old who lived in Rwanda with her father Congo and mother in Rwandam. Sitting in her home yards away from the border, Ariella said that one morning she played dead in her bed during the M23 offensive, fearing that the soldiers could “come to kill us.” The fights stopped shortly after.
Despite the two different worlds on each side of Lake Kivo Lake, the beach in Gisenyi is also a place where people from Rwanda and Kong gather in peace. Mr. Shalako, a 20-year-old, said he had crossed the border to tell his Rwanda friends that he was safe.
“Politicians want to make us believe we are enemies, but we are brothers,” he said.
In her living room, Ariella stopped her mathematical homework to talk about the war. She said she longs for a her aunt who lives in a bunch on her upcoming vacation and “make all kinds of silly things there.”
Sitting in her pajamas with a spider, Ariella asked the presidents from both countries who left silence in the room: “Why can’t I just make peace?”
