(20 Sep 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Goma, DRC – 29 August 2025
1. Melissa Hamuli sits in a room in the Shirika la Umoja orthopaedic centre
2. Various Hamuli’s leg which was injured in a bombing
3. Close up of Hamuli’s face
4. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Melissa Hamuli, patient:
“My situation is very bad. Everything has changed. I have not worked since the bombing. I no longer work, and neither does my mother, so we have nothing.”
5. Various Hamuli at home
6. Various Hamuli walks in the street near her home
7. Various Hamuli sits on a bench in an alleyway
8. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Melissa Hamuli, patient:
“War is not a good thing. It causes many to become disabled, others die. Everything changes. War is truly evil. We pray for it to end, and that the country’s leaders have mercy on us and stop this war that causes us so much suffering.”
9. Various technicians make prosthetics at the Shirika la Umoja orthopaedic centre
10. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Julienne Paypay, technician:
“In previous years, the numbers were not this high. Back then, most people coming here were born with disabilities, but today there are far more amputees than before.”
11. Various a technician handles a prosthetic made for Amani Jérôme Jean-Claude
12. Various technicians help Jean-Claude put on a prosthetic leg
13. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Amani Jérôme Jean-Claude, widower:
“There were four of us—me, my son, my younger brother, and another person. God helped us escape. My wife and four children died instantly. Twelve people died there. That’s what happened to me, and that’s how I ended up in the hospital.”
14. Various Jean-Claude puts on a prosthetic leg
15. Various Jean-Claude walks with the prosthetic leg
16. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Amani Jérôme Jean-Claude, widower:
“The same day, I was taken to the hospital and that night my leg was amputated. After that, they continued treating me and told me they had no other solution but to give me a prosthetic, so I could walk like everyone else. When I arrived here, they welcomed me warmly, showed me how it was made, and when I tried it, I felt like I could walk again.”
17. Various Gisèle Kantu leads physiotherapy exercises with patients at the centre
18. SOUNDBITE (French) Gisèle Kantu, physiotherapist, ICRC:
“We see people who were fitted two or more years ago returning, because prosthetics last two to three years for adults, and for children we must renew them every six months due to growth. So all these individuals have to come back each year or every two years, including those newly injured this year. For us, the needs just keep growing.”
19. Various patients do exercises at the centre
20. A patient walks in the street in Goma
STORYLINE:
LEAD IN :
On the front line of Congo’s conflict, a trauma centre tells a story of horror and survival.
An orthopaedic clinic near the frontline has treated over 800 severely injured patients, many of them amputees, since an upsurge in fighting since January.
It struggles with limited resources as workers craft artificial limbs one by one, pressing ahead to meet surging demand and help amputees regain their mobility.
STORYLINE :
Thirty year-old Melissa Hamuli survived a January bombardment near a checkpoint in the town of Mubambiro in North Kivu province, during an upsurge in fighting in eastern Congo’s conflict in Goma.
Hours later, some motorbike riders pulled her from the rubble.
Gravely injured, Hamuli was spared amputations but her legs no longer functioned correctly.
Today, with the help of a special orthotic brace supplied by the centre, she can stand again.
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