The Big Bang

I suppose that when I was little I got used to bombs, being in the middle of a nasty war, but I don’t remember ever ever hearing a bang as loud as the one I heard at about 8 o’clock last Sunday morning. The curtains in our living room blew into a horizontal position, and the noise was followed by the tinkling of glass as some of the windows in the flats above us were shattered. This was followed by another, and then another – five in all, I think it was.

You can imagine the stories that these explosions gave rise to. At last, Tshisekedi is fighting Kabila, and justice will be done; there’s been a coup; the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) has declared war on the DRC, etc.

Well, the last rumour was the one that the soldiers who are stationed near us believed. So, happy as a lark, they started up their tanks and took up positions along the river. Then, getting bored, decided to use the guns on their tanks to fire a few salvos across the river as an opening warning.

In retrospect, it was just as well that the people on the other side were so preoccupied with the mayhem that they took no notice.

Our guards told us, and they were clearly well informed, that the bangs had definitely come from Brazzaville: We had a friend staying in Brazzaville so phoned her to find out what she knew. She was working with the military, and told us that she was certain that this was not a coup. The army people had been very calm yesterday. But she said the streets below her window were covered in broken glass, and jammed with cars and fire engines. Her main instinct was to go down to the ground floor where she would feel less vulnerable.

We received warnings from the British Embassy not to go out. The guards closed the huge steel door in front of our entrance lobby, and locked the gate leading onto the street. The British Embassy was particularly worried because one of the tanks that was shooting across the river was parked just outside their property, thus making them a very likely target should there be retaliation. A message from the American system said a mortar shell had landed near the High Court.

Within an hour the news came out that the explosions had been caused by a fire at a munitions dump, so it was just a nasty accident. But in the process hundreds of people had been killed, thousands wounded, and whole areas flattened.

So taking no notice of the security warnings, we took our usual drive with the dogs to the lake, an hour away. Another almost normal Sunday in Kinshasa.