Supporting DR Congo coffee communities ravaged by floods

[Editor’s note: Click here to jump straight to On the Ground’s donation page.] Back-to-back heavy rains on May 2 and May 4 triggered flash flooding and landslides in eastern DR Congo, as well as in parts of Rwanda and western Uganda. The villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi, in Kalehe territory, South Kivu province, DR Congo, were hit particularly hard. According to the administrator of Kalehe, the official human toll in the region was over 400 dead, over 5,000 missing, and over 100,000 internally displaced people, as of May 9. Compounding the catastrophe while making identification and recovery efforts more difficult was the fact that Bushushu’s market day, when the population typically doubles, was on May 4, during the worst of the flooding. Several coffee cooperatives — including Muungano, SOPACDI, and Kalehe Arabica Coffee Cooperative (KACCO) — sit along the western shores of Lake Kivu and had members who were personally impacted. The Congolese government and NGOs have sent ...