RPT-Congo's displaced struggle to vote
Source: Reuters
(Fixes typo in headline) By Tim Cocks BUNIA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - When militiamen raided his refugee camp in eastern Congo, the last thing Bagaya Makambo thought of rescuing was his voter registration card. "I had to run for my life," the 33-year-old said, as he queued outside an electoral office in Bunia, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo's conflict-scarred Ituri district. "They were shooting people at random, burning huts. So I grabbed my younger sister and ran. We left our identity cards with everything else -- now I'm scared I won't be able to vote." Ituri was one of the bloodiest corners of Congo's 1998-2003 war, which drew in six neighbouring countries and triggered a humanitarian disaster killing more than 4 million people. Some 1.7 million people displaced by the war have still not been able to return home. Sunday's presidential run-off pitting incumbent Joseph Kabila against former rebel Jean-Pierre Bemba, and parallel provincial elections, are meant to cap the peace process. But militia still roam much of the volatile east, killing civilians and battling ill-equipped government soldiers backed by U.N. peacekeepers. Congolese government forces killed 12 militiamen this month while fighting off a wave of attacks by resurgent Ituri rebels. Many in Ituri left their homes and headed for the safety of Bunia's sandy streets, with its heavy presence of peacekeepers. But with the historic vote just a day away, many people eager to vote -- turnout in the first round was 70 per cent -- say they lost their identity cards while fleeing militia attacks and have failed to get them replaced. "When you are being chased out by men with guns, you don't go back and get your identity card," said Makambo, who voted in the first round on July 30 but later lost his card in a militia raid on Gety camp. Latsobi Haboyo thumped the seat on his shabby bicycle as he complained he'd been trying to replace his voter card for weeks. The 60-year-old fled his village in late July after fighting in which two of his brothers were killed. TOO SCARED "My identity card is there but I'm too scared to go back. They still haven't given me a replacement -- it's my right to vote but now I don't think I can," he said. A corrupt official had offered to speed up the process for Miriam Akiki Ugongo, 22, for $5. "But we don't have money: we're refugees," she said, queuing patiently and shifting her weight to balance an infant strapped to her back. Three years after the war officially ended, Congo's army remains a chaotic and often unpaid group of fighters drawn from several armed groups that fought each other in the war. Bemba has strong support in the capital and if he loses to Kabila -- who won the first round with 45 percent -- there are fears of violence that could spill into Ituri. "Ituri is volatile and linked to Kinshasa. If Kinshasa flares up, the militia could reactivate themselves," Leocadio Salmeron, a U.N. mission spokesman in Bunia told Reuters. Nevertheless, many eastern Congolese hope Sunday's elections will turn a page in the mineral-rich region's bleak history. Zakineki Nyaga Dudu, 66, remembers when she voted in Congo's last free election more than 40 years ago. "I'll be so happy to be voting again after all this time," she said, adjusting the knot in her bright orange headscarf. "Whoever wins must bring peace and stop us being attacked."
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