On Thursday 22 August, the town centre of Goma, where HEAL Africa’s hospital and headquarters are located, was bombarded on several occasions in various locations, creating a wave of panic of the population and many casualties.

The day before, some war wounded soldiers had actually been brought in at HEAL Africa for treatment. The hospital is well renowned for dealing with this type of emergency situation, and the population knows that war wounded patients can access 24h quality specialized care for free.

Since yesterday, 22nd August, the HEAL Africa hospital has dealt with:

A few specific examples…

A..:

A 29 years old soldier, who has been serving in the national forces for 11 years, A. was brought in at HA in the morning of 22nd August, after receiving a bullet through the side of his nose that also destroyed his left cheek completely on its way out.

A. is married with 2 children.

C., 16 years old, arrived at the HEAL Africa hospital yesterday late afternoon.

She comes from the area of town called ‘Office’, and was injured after a bomb blasted near where she was standing.

She suffers from trauma on her cheek/jaw line, and on both legs.

A. P. received a bullet in his thorax and now this young father of 1 is very likely to face being paralyzed for the rest of his life as the bullet reach his spine.

A A, 11 years old, was out to collect some water, when a bomb exploded nearby.

Fear got him to run away in panic, and in his haste, he fell down on the floor, breaking 2 bones in his forearm.

J. Y. shows the location from where one of the bomb sent on the afternoon of 22nd August got into his family’s yard, after destroying most of the neighbours’ house and the top of the fence.

His mum declares that she and her 5 children were inside the house when it all happened. She adds “our house has been severely damaged; we have nowhere else to go now”. Neighbors helped the family get to the hospital on bikes, where they were taken care of in a state of shock and minor traumas.

The HEAL Africa medical team has being doing some extensive work dealing with all the war wounded patients. They have been assisted by an Australian medical team who is currently visiting the HA hospital, and who have been coming every year for the past 6 years to provide various training and treat complicated cases. Dr Muller (on the right hand side of the attached picture, in a sitting position) declares that yesterday was a long and busy day as he had worked from 7.30AM till 9PM; “as per 9AM I had been mostly in the operating theatre, dealing with the most complicated cases. He had heavily injured people, but our team was really motivated to work hard and do our best to alleviate the condition of our patients.”

Dear friends and partners, HEAL Africa is providing medical care for the most vulnerable, included war wounded patients, at no charge at all to the patient. However, this represents extra expenses for our organization.

Should you want to donate specifically for the war wounded patients that we are currently treating, please go to the “Give” or “Donate” page at healafrica.org.

Those in Canada or Australia please see the contact information on the website.

We thank you for your continuing interest, support and care for the people of the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Heal Africa Team