'I survived torture in the DRC'

Benjamin, who survived torture in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) writes about the crisis engulfing his homeland as he calls on the world not to look away.

Is Eastern DRC still on the map of the world? If so, why is nobody paying attention to what’s unfolding there? If it was them in Goma today, hiding in their homes, trying to protect their children while soldiers with machetes leave the street outside strewn with the dead – would they care?

Your satellites pinpoint the minerals hidden below the ground from which we all benefit, but your eyes are blind to what’s happening above. Massacre, rape, child slavery: bombs raining down on hospitals, killing babies in their incubators – that’s my home country now. 

As a Pastor and IT engineer, I had a peaceful life with my son, two nieces and my mother. After work, I would spend time with my kids, talk with them about their day, teach them how to cook, and play together or walk the local trails.

One evening, my eight-year-old son and I were sitting together whilst his Grandma watched TV. Flicking through the channels, she stopped on a documentary. The film caught our attention; it was about the natural resources of our country. All at once, my son stopped what he was doing and asked: "Dad, why are we taught that the DRC is a geological treasure house of mineral resources - yet its people live in misery?"

He was right: DRC has huge deposits of all the rare earths and minerals needed to make smartphones, laptops and batteries for electric cars - things that people all over the world are greedy for. But the government doesn't share the profits with the people; and worse, now it's been invaded by soldiers from Rwanda, fighting over these precious minerals.

From then on, I was obsessed with how to answer my son's question. Reflecting on it led me to join an opposition party through which I could fight for change, so what lies beneath the Congolese soil should profit the Congolese people.

As well as my children and elderly mother, I was also supporting some members of the church I led. These responsibilities had helped to jolt me into activism. All I wanted was to make a difference in people’s lives. But as I began to protest corruption, the high cost of living and the dictatorship of the regime - just standing up for basic rights everyone should enjoy - I was arrested and imprisoned, and all the people who depended on me became vulnerable. 

The days in prison are an indescribably dark memory, one that I would not wish even on an enemy. You can spend days without eating, having a shower - that's the least of it. The routines of daily life are rape, torture, starvation.

And meanwhile, I had brought troubles on my family. One night, I was crying, and a guard offered to help, and I gave him my cousin’s number, asking him to pass on a message. The guard told my cousin that, with money, he could arrange for me to be released. There was one condition: I had to leave the country. If I was found alive, his own life would be on the line.

Somehow, my cousin found the money for the bribe. And a few nights later, I was blindfolded and bundled into a van. My cousin took me to his house where I stayed hidden for a week. Somehow, he got me a passport. And I found myself in the UK.

But the first steps in this country were not easy. I had to learn to speak English: a third language after French and Lingala. I had to take a menial job, even though I’m highly educated. But I persevered, and now the UK has become a place of safety, which I can call home. I work to put food on the table for my family, who were eventually able to join me.

But whenever I see my kids hunched over the computer, I think of my country, and what's happening. Because of that laptop and the one I’m writing on now and maybe the phone you’re reading on, because of the minerals so abundant in my country, children the same age as mine are being killed. They’re dying in the mines, as soldiers, or casualties of war. Women are being raped; their villages destroyed.

So next time you get out your phone or open your laptop, buy a game for your kids, or get into your electric car, please think of me and my compatriots who have given them to you. And put the same energy you dedicate to peace in Ukraine and Gaza, into bringing that peace to my beloved Congo, too.

Banner image credit: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham / Stringer
Article first published in The Mirror