Chronicling conflict and survival in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Along the east­ern edge of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, nes­tled under the Virun­ga moun­tains lies the North Kivu province, a ver­dant land­scape home to over eight mil­lion peo­ple that has been brought to siege since the late 1990s. 

Deep with­in the rich and fer­tile lands lie extra­or­di­nary reserves of cobalt, ura­ni­um, and cop­per, whose val­ue to for­eign inter­ests has fueled a bru­tal web of polit­i­cal insta­bil­i­ty, mil­i­tary con­flict, dis­place­ment, and death. In recent years, vio­lent clash­es between the Con­golese army and a rebel group called M23 have forced more than one mil­lion civil­ians have been forced from their homes. 

“The M23 rebel group is built around for­mer Con­golese army units who mutinied,” says pho­tog­ra­ph­er Hugh Kin­sel­la Cun­ning­ham, who has been doc­u­ment­ing the con­flict since it explod­ed in 2022. 

“M23 claim to fight for the rights of eth­nic Con­golese Tut­sis but the region­al con­text is extreme­ly com­plex and the rebels are used as a proxy army by Rwan­da,” Cun­ning­ham says. ​“While talk of ​‘blood tech­nol­o­gy’ can often over­sim­pli­fy this con­flict, a key aim of the M23 rebels was to seize the world’s largest coltan mine – an ele­ment essen­tial to mod­ern elec­tri­cal equipment.”

Cun­ning­ham has born wit­ness to the con­flict esca­lat­ing from fight­ing in remote moun­tain areas to a refugee cri­sis with mas­sive dis­place­ment camps, with civil­ians trapped by heavy weapons out­side the ever-shrink­ing perimeter.

“Dis­place­ment camps can be very unsafe for the res­i­dents, sex­u­al vio­lence is rife, and artillery is often with­in earshot, but peo­ple have been extreme­ly gen­er­ous with their time and their hon­est expres­sions of their expe­ri­ences of con­flict,” says Cun­ning­ham, who recent­ly received the Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al UK Media Awards 2024 for this body of work and will be exhibit­ing the work in Dis­placed by the M23 at Visa pour l’im­age fes­ti­val in Per­pig­nan, France.

Work­ing across por­trai­ture, reportage, and drone pho­tog­ra­phy to show peo­ple from var­i­ous walks of life sur­viv­ing the war, Cun­ning­ham cre­ates a mul­ti-dimen­sion­al doc­u­ment that has real-time implications.

“The pro­pa­gan­da out­put of the M23 rebels and their Rwan­dan back­ers focus­es on a nar­ra­tive that M23 is fight­ing geno­ci­dal mili­tias in the Con­go so these pho­tographs are an essen­tial doc­u­ment that the main vic­tims are actu­al­ly these fam­i­lies forced far from home,” he says.

Cun­ning­ham also points to a foren­sic ele­ment of the work, not­ing, ​“The aer­i­al pho­tographs show­ing muni­tions strike loca­tions and front­line areas are an essen­tial part of doc­u­ment­ing crimes against civil­ians and forc­ing account­abil­i­ty on armed actors in an extreme­ly opaque conflict.”

Cunningham’s por­traits show the human face of con­flict that often gets lost in war pho­tog­ra­phy. ​“The por­trait pho­tog­ra­phy takes place in a qui­et area of a camp, and once com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have seen the first few pic­tures tak­en, a gen­tle rhythm emerges as oth­ers also want to speak and be pho­tographed,” he says.

Accom­pa­ny­ing the por­traits are tes­ti­monies that ampli­fy the sto­ries of those who have been stripped of so much but still have their voice. ​‘The attack was a month ago in Kibum­ba,” Lazare Mbavu, a 72-year-old man, told Cun­ning­ham. ​“Not once in my life have I seen the Con­golese invade Rwan­da, but they often bring war here. We don’t know why this is hap­pen­ing to us, and watch­ing for atroc­i­ties each day. Our peo­ple cry all the time, we sleep in unsuit­able places and eat badly.”

Dis­placed by the M23 is on view August 31 – Sep­tem­ber 15, 2024, at Visa pour l’im­age fes­ti­val in Per­pig­nan, France.

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