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CW: Violence, sexual assault
When Lema Shamamba fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she took just one of her three children. While the other two were at school, her youngest, Pasifique, happened to be home sick that day. After protesting the gruesome killings in her village by militia, Lema knew she was in danger. Within hours, she and five-year-old Pasifique had crossed the border into Uganda.
“I didn’t have an option,” she says. If she didn’t leave, she would be killed.
Lema is calm when she recounts all it took for her and her family to be living in West Auckland in 2021. Born and raised in Bweremana, a district of Masisi in the eastern territory of the conflict-plagued DRC, Lema grew up watching her small, community-focused village become an attractive target for large multinational companies. The companies weren’t interested in Lema, her neighbours, or even the village itself. They wanted what was beneath them: coltan.