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Fitina Kabumba: "Having elephantiasis does not help when you are displaced"

Fitina Kabumba, IDP at Goma, Congo Jane Some/IRIN
    GOMA

    Widowed, displaced and suffering from lymphatic filariasis or elephantiasis, a disease that causes limb enlargement, Fitina Kabumba's life has changed from bearable to insufferable.

    Fighting between armed groups in North Kivu Province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), saw Kabumba flee her home in the Kimoga area in September 2007. She made her way to Goma, the provincial capital, and is now one of at least 40,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in four camps on the outskirts of the town.

    Kabumba, a mother of five, spoke to IRIN on 21 June at the Bulengo IDP camp:

    "I have had this condition [elephantiasis] since I was 22, but since I fled my home, after the fighting intensified, I have had nothing but trouble, mostly with accessing medical treatment.

    “I used to visit a clinic at home where I got some tablets to help me but nowadays I have nothing, not even painkillers. I benefited only once from a medical distribution at this camp some time in March. I do not have the fare, let alone the money required, to seek special treatment in Goma.

    “Right now I just wish I had a petty job to do - like washing clothes, carrying water for people to use in their homes or even tilling land for them - just to get something small to enable me to get treatment. Being idle all day is not good. It is even worse depending on relief aid for daily survival.

    “Before I got displaced, I used to think my life was hard, what with being a peasant and having this disease; but it has gone from bad to worse, I don’t have the means to manage this disease, I don't know when I will next get medical attention.

    “My children get teased a lot by other children who tell them their mother has swollen legs; I wish I could find medication that would help reduce the swelling so my children can be treated like other children.

    “The fact that I am illiterate has not helped either, I don't understand how I got this disease, I don't understand its management and here I am, in a camp for the displaced, depending on aid. Will I ever really get rid of this disease?"

    js/cb

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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