Most of the busy tradesmen and women who pass through Minago every day, a rural area in the province of Rumonge, south west of Burundi, have no clue that a community of their countrymen live in dreadful depravation beneath their feet. Out of sight of the road, at the bottom of a steep bank close to the shore of Lake Tanganyika, about 300 people live in a literal pit called Kinogono, without clean water, shelter or food. Now, the small community of pit-dwellers is battling a new outbreak of cholera, which has affected five to date.
Kinogono pit-dwellers’ huts
The people of Kinogono rely on water from Lake Tanganyika that is contaminated with human waste. They cannot build toilets because they live on sandy land. “If they build a toilet today, tomorrow it will have sunk. So people will go in those reeds on the shore of the lake to relieve themselves. And when it rains, all the waste goes to the lake they use to drink, cook and satisfy other needs. That’s why the cholera epidemic has a strong hold here”, says Pascal Baranshikiriye, 51, an administrative local official.
The community in Kinogono is the most affected by the cholera epidemic that is sweeping through Minago area in Rumonge province. Jean Claude Ndikumasabo, the Rumonge provincial doctor, says the epidemic broke out on 9 October and has affected 13 people in total so far. Patients are treated at the centre for cholera treatment. It was built by Switzerland’s Doctors Without Borders at the central Rumonge hospital. Two patients are still hospitalized while 11 have already been discharged.
Before it spread to Rumonge province, the cholera epidemic broke out in the rural area of Kabezi, in Bujumbura province last July. It has affected around 200 people and it’s still spreading there in defiance to all the sustained effort deployed to fight against the disease.
According to residents of Kinogono, the problem is made worse by fishermen who use their reed bushes for toilets, and inhabitants from higher up the hill who come to wash themselves and their clothes in the lake. “We beg them not to wash clothes in the lake but they won’t listen. These people also contribute to the disease affecting us”, complains Sofia Nimbona, 26, a mother of four. She is the representative of the community of 55 families, mainly children and women with some of the women being widows.
The lack of clean water aggravates their already deplorable living conditions. “We lack everything to meet our basic needs”, says Nestor Manirakiza, 35, a father of five. “Even if we could find [clean water], we have no cans or other containers to keep it”, says Solange Irambona, 28, a mother of four. “We lack everything here. We are starving. We have nothing, nothing”, says Kanyama Ndabishuriye, 54, a father of four. “If they could at least find someone to help and build a tank of water for them”, says Baranshikiriye.
“These people of Kinogono are living in terrible conditions. They are very poor. You might be talking to a person who have spent almost two days without eating”, says Aimable Nsengiyumva, an agent for health promotion who leads activities of control and prevention of cholera at Minago medical centre.
The people of Kinogono live in very small huts with roofs of grass. “We have no tents to cover our roofs. When it rains, the water directly drops inside and we have nowhere to hide”, says Solange Irambona.
The residents say that the assistance intended for them ends up in the hands of other people. “We have been told countless times that assistance was coming and, when we went, the tents and other things were given to wealthy people”, complains Marie Barakamfitiye 56, a mother of 15.
According to Baranshikiriye, the local official, the people of Kinogono come from different backgrounds but are united by being victims of war. “Many of them are former refugees who could not go back to their properties because they were already taken by other people”, he explains. “When we came back from exile in Congo, our land was occupied by others who vehemently refused to give it back to us”, says Barakamfitiye.
The future of many of the community’s children is uncertain. They cannot attend school because they cannot find school materials. “I have no land, no money to buy school materials for my children”, says Barakamfitiye. “For me, it’s not only money that causes me troubles: my children are chased from school because they don’t have birth certificates”, says Emelyne Nzeyimana, 30, a mother of six who once was in exile in Congo.
The land they are living on is contested between land owners and the government. Sources say the case that since the government is not sure it will win the case, it is unwilling to invest in construction for the Kinogono residents. Local authorities are begging the government to do anything possible to find a home for these people elsewhere. “The government should help them find them another place to live in good conditions”, says Bénoit Nkinahamira, a volunteer.
The likes of people of Kinogono are an enduring by-product of the many crises that has hit Burundi from its independence from Belgium in 1962. The relative calm that existed over the past decade or so has been shattered by President Pierre Nkurunziza bid for a third term that was met by a violent opposition from April 2015.
As a result, hundreds have been killed while thousands have fled mainly to the neighbouring Rwanda and Tanzania. Last June, the UN said at least 348 people had been victims of extrajudicial killing. The UNHCR said over 300.000 Burundians had fled to neighbouring countries by October this year.
Now with the recent severing of ties with the UN Higher Commissioner for Human Rights, the withdrawal from the ICC and the crack down on local civil society organisations by the Burundi government, many fear Burundi is sinking ever deeper into crisis.
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