Shortly after Ezechiel Birusha’s 17-year-old son, Justin Niyonzima, left home to work in a mine last year, Birusha feared he had been killed. Fighting between armed groups had erupted in the area Niyonzima had gone to, and most people scattered from the site in panic. After the attack, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Birusha did not hear from his son for weeks.
“I just prayed to God to find him,” said the 70-year-old. It was more than a year before the two were reunited in North Kivu’s Rutshuru territory, where they live. Seated in their small hut by the side of the road in Kalengera town, Birusha holds back tears, ecstatic that his son is home, yet fearful about what he has returned to.
