Madonna and Child

Madonna and Child

Madonna and Child
2012
FARDC (Congolese national army) soldier holding his baby girl, on the road between Fizi and the Haut Plateau region of South Kivu. This road is on the front line between Mai Mai Yakutumba and the FRF (Federalist Republican Forces).
Love Is the Drug

Love Is the Drug

Love Is the Drug
2012
South of Lake Kivu, the River Rusizi forms the natural border dividing the Democratic Republic of Congo (on the right) from the Republic of Rwanda. In the mid 1990s, Hutu genocidaires from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) fled across this river following the Rwandan Genocide to take refuge in eastern Congo’s remote jungle landscape, where they have lived nomadically ever since. This paramilitary group has been responsible for destabilizing the region for almost two decades.
Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams

Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams

Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
2012
A young girl wraps her arms in her clothes to keep warm in the early dawn in Busurungi, Walikale Territory, North Kivu. Dozens of her neighbors and family members were killed in attacks by the FDLR in 2009. Men from this town formed an armed group, Mai Mai Kifuafua, under General Delphin and General Katabilalo, to protect their community (people in this area from the Batembo tribe) against FDLR attacks. At this time, Mai Mai Kifuafua had joined the loose alliance of self-protection militias known as Raiya Mutomboki, which became notorious for horrific attacks on unarmed Hutus. These days, the FDLR have fled north east to Virunga Park, and Kifuafua have allied with other Tembo armed groups against Nyanga militias, including Mai Mai Sheka. The conflict shifts constantly. Unarmed civilians are always its victim.
Of Lillies and Remains

Of Lillies and Remains

Of Lillies and Remains
2012
Skull of a victim of the massacre carried out by the FDLR in Busurungi in 2009. The skull was secretly taken to Chambucha at the request of surviving relatives, so that it could be documented without reprisal on the villagers of Busurungi by FDLR. The skull was placed by the photographer in wet grass near a riverbank and dressed with cut flowers, a memento mori.
Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Only Love Can Break Your Heart
2012
FDLR rebel commander with a baby from the Tembo tribe in Busurungi, Walikale Territory, North Kivu. The FDLR massacred almost one hundred Tembo villagers here in 2009. In the background, members of Mai Mai Kifuafua, a Tembo defence militia, watch tensely. This photograph was taken in February 2012. Shortly afterward, Mai Mai Kifuafua joined with the Raia Mutomboki and drove the FDLR from this remote enclave.
Untitled

Untitled

Untitled
2012
The youngest victim of a massacre in central Masisi Territory in which six people were killed, all of them women and children. The women were first raped, then slaughtered by machete or a spear strike to the back of the neck. This boy, aged three, was killed by repeated spear strike directly to the middle of his tiny face, leaving a large red hole that exposed the inside of his skull. These victims were Hunde, allegedly massacred by a Congolese Hutu militia known as Nyatura. I asked a Nyatura leader about the murders. Initially reluctant, he eventually explained that they were probably committed by an enraged Hutu family who had lost eleven of their kin in a similar attack, allegedly carried out by General Janvier’s APCLS one week earlier.
Because the Night

Because the Night

Because the Night
2012
View of settlements at dusk, in the valley west of Katale, Masisi Territory. As the photograph was taken, Hutu families gathered together for safety at Katale following a massacre, allegedly by Hunde paramilitaries.
Thousands Are Sailing I & II

Thousands Are Sailing I & II

Thousands Are Sailing I & II
2012
A large IDP camp that formed at Rubaya in southern Masisi Territory. Many of those living here fled attacks by Raia Mutomboki groups. The Raia are notorious for carrying out raids bare-chested, wearing only raffia skirts, banging drums, and singing war songs, before killing entire families by spear and machete. Many residents of the Rubaya camp recounted this kind of incident from their own experience. Sickness is rife inside the camp. An estimated 120,000 lived in Rubaya camp at this time.
Poison Glen

Poison Glen

Poison Glen
2012
Mountain formations near Bunyakiri, South Kivu, in a landscape populated by FDLR rebels and their dependents. Shortly after this photograph was taken, in early March 2012, armed men from Raiya Mutomboki massacred 32 unarmed civilians, mainly Hutus, in Bunyakiri. The FDLR carried out reprisal massacres in May of the same year, killing 51 unarmed civilians in nearby villages. These events have led to a series of tit-for-tat massacres, the largest of which saw a death toll of 242 unarmed civilians. The violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, who have fled violence and take refuge in squalid conditions within sprawling camps that lack adequate sanitation.
Hombo, Walikale

Hombo, Walikale

Hombo, Walikale
2012
The town of Hombo in southern Walikale Territory, on the border between North and South Kivu. Viewed here from a hilltop command post controlled by the Congolese army (FARDC), Hombo lies on an axis that has seen intense fighting and frequent massacres by Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Raia Mutomboki, and other armed groups. The FDLR stronghold and training camp of Shalio lies not far from Hombo in the isolated mountainous jungle of Walikale Territory. Recent shifts in alliances between armed groups, and the overall balance of power in the region, has made this part of Walikale particularly unsettled.
Higher Ground

Higher Ground

Higher Ground
2012
Member of Mai Mai Kifuafua sits in a tree, near Busurungi, Walikale Territory.
Anna

Anna

Anna
2012
A young girl, Anna, photographed alongside members of Mai Mai Yakutumba near Fizi, South Kivu. Mai Mai Yakutumba have allegedly carried out piracy on Lake Tanganyika, as well as massacring a Land Cruiser full of NGO workers delivering aid. They are at war with the Banyamulenge Tutsi FRF from the Haut Plateau, as well as the FARDC. Anna was born into, lives and travels with this nomadic armed group. It is common for children to form a part of rebel life, to grow up in the midst of conflict.
Safe From Harm

Safe From Harm

Safe From Harm
2012
Member of Mai Mai Yakutumba posing in a camouflage headdress made from foliage, near Fizi on Lake Tanganyika, South Kivu.
Platon

Platon

Platon
2012
Farm near Bihambwe, Masisi Territory, North Kivu. This rich pastureland is fiercely fought over in an escalating territorial conflict. Originally owned by indigenous Congolese tribes, who subsist by growing crops and hunting bush meat, this landscape was seized by militias from pastoralist tribes, such as Tutsi encroaching from neighbouring Rwanda, who have cut the primordial forests to create pasture for their nomadic cattle herds. Local populations are dispossessed through intimidation and human rights violations. This valley has recently seen fighting by armed groups known as M23, Nyatura, APCLS, Raiya Mutomboki and regular pillaging and extortion by the Congolese national army (FARDC).
Here Come The Warm Jets

Here Come The Warm Jets

Here Come The Warm Jets
2012
A patchwork of fields on a steep hill looking out across Rwanda. This photograph was taken from an adjacent hill, directly on the Congo-Rwandan border. The hills are in Kibumba, north of Goma. The border here is porous and has served as a crossing point for armed groups, especially M23 rebels, and the Rwandan army.
The Partisan II

The Partisan II

The Partisan II
2012
M23 commander on the banks of the River Rutshuru in Virunga National Park, near Mabenga, North Kivu.
Suspicious Minds

Suspicious Minds

Suspicious Minds
2012
Three M23 rebels under Colonel Innocent Kaina (aka “India Queen”) standing at the deserted Kanyaruchinya IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp, which they had recently seized from FARDC control. The next day these rebels—a force of less than fifteen hundred—pushed onward for Goma, where they were victorious against FARDC troops and their UN support, which included Indian helicopter gunships. Witnesses say that Rwandan army troops came across the border to assist the M23, which is widely viewed as a Rwandan proxy force operating in Congo.
First We Take Manhattan

First We Take Manhattan

First We Take Manhattan
2012
Column of M23 rebels on a road in Virunga National Park, near Mabenga, North Kivu, three days before the group moved on, and soon took the city of Goma on 19th November, 2012.
Wave of Mutilation

Wave of Mutilation

Wave of Mutilation
2012
Body of a soldier from the Congolese national army (FARDC) killed in fighting with M23 rebels on the road from Goma to Rutshuru, November 2012.
Lost Fun Zone

Lost Fun Zone

Lost Fun Zone
2012
Kanyaruchinya IDP camp, North Kivu, was home to at least sixty thousand people who had fled south from Rutshuru Territory to escape M23 rebels. This photograph was taken in late October 2012. Only a couple of weeks later, Kanyaruchinya’s population would be forced to flee again, abandoning the camp in great haste.
Tombstone Blues

Tombstone Blues

Tombstone Blues
2012
Kanyaruchinya IDP camp, some ten miles north of Goma, was home to at least sixty thousand refugees, displaced by the M23 from their homes further north, in Rutshuru Territory. When M23 forces pushed south to take control of Goma, this camp was abruptly abandoned. Fleeing inhabitants stripped the makeshift huts of all their belongings, including the tarpaulin roofs. Many headed for Mugunga IDP camp, just west of Goma. Tragically, the front line quickly followed them only a few days later, and they were forced to flee once again, west from Mugunga towards Sake.
Simple Twist of Fate

Simple Twist of Fate

Simple Twist of Fate
2012
Body of a civilian is taken through the streets of Goma by pushcart on November 19, 2012, the day when M23 rebels took the city. The situation was very unstable, and the man may have been knocked out or killed in a looting incident.
Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth
2012
A young rebel soldier from M23 takes a combat position during street fighting against remnants of FARDC during the battle of Goma on19th November, 2012.
Beaucoups of Blues

Beaucoups of Blues

Beaucoups of Blues
2012
This body of water formed part of Lake Kivu until 2002, when it was cut off from the rest of the lake by a stream of lava from Mt Nyiragongo in North Kivu province. The lava hardened to form the basalt field at the right of the photograph, from which fishermen cast their bait. Nyiragongo has erupted at least thirty-four times since 1882, and remains active.

Richard Mosse’s powerful video installation The Enclave (2013) premiered at the 2013 Venice Biennale in the Irish Pavilion. The Enclave was produced using a recently discontinued military film technology originally designed in World War II to reveal camouflaged installations hidden in the landscape. This film registers an invisible spectrum of infrared light, rendering the green landscape in vivid hues of lavender, crimson, and hot pink. On the threshold of the medium’s extinction, Mosse employed this film to document an ongoing conflict situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. This humanitarian disaster—in which 5.4 million people have died since 1998—is largely overlooked by the mass media. Frequent massacres, human rights violations, and widespread sexual violence remain unaccounted for. In a kind of advocacy of seeing, The Enclave attempts to cast this forgotten tragedy in a new spectrum of light, to make this forgotten humanitarian disaster visible.