Refugees make good business as tribes battle
By Rodrique Ngowi
Associated Press
BUNIA, Congo -- Dealers buy flakes of gold from small-time miners. Hunters peddle monkey meat to mothers with families to feed. And women hawk everything from soap to vegetables to pirated CDs.
Nestled in the corner of a muddy camp for 10,000 people displaced by tribal fighting in northeastern Congo, the bustling market is an unlikely success story in a land devastated by decades of ruinous dictatorships and civil war.
"Business is thriving here because there is something for everyone," says Rashidi Mahamudi, a gold dealer who opened shop in the camp after abandoning his store in Bunia's nearby downtown because of the conflict between rival tribes.
Like millions around Africa who have lived under brutal dictatorships and through civil wars, the residents of Congo's Ituri region have found ways to survive in an area where more than 50,000 people are thought to have been killed since 1999 in battles involving soldiers, rebels and tribal fighters.
Accurate economic statistics are hard to come by for Ituri -- or for any part of the vast country of at least 50 million people. In many parts of Ituri, frequent clashes between tribal militias have brought business to a standstill.
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