Women, survivors of the Nyamukubi floods in Kalehe (South Kivu), mourn their loved ones who died a week earlier in this disaster. May 9, 2023.
Radio Okapi/Ph. Emmanuel Elameji”/>
A team of psychologists has been crisscrossing for a few days all the sites that temporarily shelter the victims of the floods, which occurred in Kalehe (South Kivu) on May 4, for their psychological care.
Radio Okapi attended on Sunday, May 21, one of the detraumatization sessions held at the Parish of Ihusi-Kalehe by volunteers from the Olame center in Bukavu.
To date, seven hundred and eight people have undergone “emotional debriefing” in Bushushu, five hundred in Nyamukubi and two hundred and eighty displaced people with host families in Kalehe-Centre.
The activities were focused on psychological support exercises that psychologists call in their jargon “emotional debriefing”.
The animator at the Olame center in Bukavu, Abel Ange Ntwali Furaha explains:
“After these disasters, some people lost their family members. They lost their property. And we found that there were many audiences coming to help these people. But psychosocial care was not yet taken into account. We found that people needed psychological support. We want to make them confident again so that they can pick themselves up because, although they are devastated, life must go on”.
Wherever the debriefing took place, focal points were placed, chosen from the community. They were trained by psychologists to monitor detraumatization, under the control of the Olame center.
On Saturday, May 20, the commission responsible for managing the disaster published a figure of four hundred and thirty-two bodies already found and buried by Red Cross volunteers following these floods.