Kisangani Diary

Hutu refugees have just been discovered by a UN expedition alongside an old railway track in the south of Kisangani (ex-Zaire). Eighty thousand of them have journeyed from Rwanda, where they lived through three years of famine and persecution. Humanitarian aid arrives… Four weeks later, the unprotected UN refugee camps at Kasese and Biaro are again attacked by armed “freedom fighters” from the Democratic Republic of Congo-Kinshasa. The night of 25th April 1997, eighty thousand men, women and children perish in the jungle leaving no trace behind them. “The images speak for themselves, in all their starkness and horror, tracing the exact sequence of events. I hope that the viewers will themselves become witnesses of this unbearable reality, and I’m well aware that I’m laying myself, more than anyone else, open to criticism.” (Hubert Sauper)