[The Guardian] The big picture: the persistence of normality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The big picture: the persistence of normality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Finbarr O’Reilly’s shot of a hair salon in Ituri province documents the continuation of everyday life in one of the world’s most fractured communities

Violence in the Ituri province in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has lately forced 1.7 million people to flee their homes. There are perhaps 100 separate armed militias operating in the territory, using systematic terror tactics of looting, murder, beheadings and rape in ongoing ethnic conflicts and wars over mineral resources.

The photographer Finbarr O’Reilly has been documenting that shifting horror story. His new book, Congo, A Sublime Struggle, takes its title from a hopeful speech given by independent DRC’s first president, Patrice Lumumba, before his CIA and-MI6-backed assassination in 1961. The full quotation reads: “Brothers, let us commence together a new struggle, a sublime struggle that will lead our country to peace, prosperity and greatness.”

Congo, A Sublime Struggle by Finbarr O’Reilly is published by Reliefs/Fondation Carmignac. Life After Conflict is at the UN headquarters in New York until 29 July

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