Music and dance competition promotes peace in DR Congo

Artists from the Congo and the Nice Lakes sub-region received hundreds of competition goers dancing with songs calling for peace and reconciliation in a area stricken by armed battle for greater than twenty years.

“I do know that via our dance we now have launched a message of peace which should return to the nation, the songs sung are additionally about peace and it’s a nice message,” says Abonimana Gérard, president of Dangakaranga Cultural Affiliation, group from Burundi.

For 3 days, artists such because the Belgian Burundian Pleasure Goia or Innoss’B from the DRC, the Senegalese Didier Awadi and several other native dance teams entertained the crowds.

“The Amani competition goes very, very effectively, we’re within the temper of the competition,” says Pascaline Angelina, competition goer from Bukavu.

Amani means peace in Swahili.

The ninth version of the competition needed to be relocated for the primary time to Bukavu, within the east of the nation, for safety causes.

Often held in Goma, the occasion couldn’t go forward in its stronghold due to the M23 rebels gaining floor in neighbouring North Kivu.

“This cultural second additionally makes it potential to present expression to younger individuals on the nationwide and regional stage, to say that it’s an excessive amount of, for a second, we should cease the whole lot and it is vitally vital to have the ability to proceed to dwell in order to not give energy and energy to this case that we deplore,” says Guillaume Bisimwa, organiser, of the Amani competition.

Patrick Mundeke, a competition goer from Goma, thinks the competition ought to have occurred in Goma regardless.

“The wounded individuals of Goma got here en masse to Bukavu to attend the competition,” he says.

“It’s a pity that the navy authorities of Goma stated they weren’t capable of safe 30,000 individuals when they’re supposed to guard a province of greater than 10 million inhabitants and the inhabitants of Goma got here to Bukavu, and likewise that of Bukavu.”

In keeping with the organisers, 25,000 individuals attended the three-day occasion from 9-12 February.

The Amani competition is the most important cultural occasion within the japanese a part of the DRC.

Further sources • AP