ituri: “covered in blood” - Human Rights Watch

When it began I was in the hospital and heard cries. People were running everywhere. I heard them call
people’s names. One of them came running into my room terrified and I hid the person under the sewing
machine and covered her with blankets. 157
One of those targeted related:
I hid in the ceiling of the intensive care ward with some others, but the attackers tried to get in. They
used big stones to force the door and then started to kill. In the male surgery ward, they killed twelve
people, all of them Hema patients. They just threw their bodies in the latrine. 158
The assailants forced people of other ethnic groups and hospital staff to help them find the victims. Another
targeted person said:
I hid in the ceiling of the Operating Room with Pastor Solomon Iserve, his family and others. We spent
four days there coming down just to get water and then going back up. It was very hot and there was no
food. There were fourteen of us there - some were staff, some were students, some were women. On
Tuesday [ September 10, 2002], the APC and Ngiti went to see the doctor and told him that if he didn’t
give up the Hema hiding there, they would kill him. The doctor pleaded with them but they insisted. He
was forced to open the operating room where we were hiding. We had to climb down. They wrote down
our names and the administrator handed over the list. The fourteen of us included Hema, Gegere, Lendu,
and Alur. They released two women, one Alur and one Lendu. They kept the Hema and the Gegere. The
soldiers said we should keep calm and they would give us food, but if we ran away, there would be
problems for the doctor. They gave us lots of food but we couldn’t eat much.
They came back a few hours later to get us. They tied us to each other with ropes around our wrists,
except Pastor Solomon who had his arms tied behind his back and then was tied to the others. . . . They
searched all the hospital and took out lots of people who had been hiding, making us all sit in the corridor.
The APC and Ngiti combatants were guarding us and beating us. They made us put our hands on our
heads. They said if we put our hands down, they would beat us. They searched every room. They beat
us and asked us our ethnic groups. They said: “if you tell us the truth, it may save you. If you lie, you
will die.” We didn’t know what to say. They asked me and I said Hema. They said: “You’re telling the
truth”. The combatants said they would kill us. They took my shirt and watch. They hit me with
flashlights and punched me and kicked me. I said nothing.
At about 10:00 p.m., they told us to line up. We walked with Ngiti combatants on one side and APC on
the other, not knowing where we were going. Together there were more than seventy of us, including
some women who had just given birth and patients on intravenous drips. . . . They made us go into a
house in the nurses’ compound. We spent one night there. It was very small and crowded. We just
prayed. The soldiers and the Ngiti combatants were standing guard outside and coming in and checking.
They beat us.
In the room where we were, a two-week-old baby died. His body was thrown into the latrine. His mother
had no milk to feed him. People were crying, urinating and defecating in there. 159
A member of the hospital staff related how they tried to appeal to the Ngiti commander. He said:
We went to Colonel Khandro to ask if we could see the people who had been taken from the hospital the
night before. He allowed us to talk with them through a small window in the side of the building they
were using as a prison. We managed to speak with Pastor Solomon who told us that there were about
157 Ibid.
158 Ibid.
159 Ibid.
Human Rights Watch
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July 2003, Vol. 15,No. 11 (A)