In conflict-scarred eastern Congo, Kivu Fashion Week presses on скачать в хорошем качестве

In conflict-scarred eastern Congo, Kivu Fashion Week presses on

(22 Dec 2025) ASSOCIATED PRESS Goma, DRC – 21 December 2025 1. Various shots early morning in a Goma neighborhood 2. Various shots downtown Goma 3. Widelll shot fishermen on Lake Kivu 4. Various shots models walk the runway at Kivu Fashion Week 5. SOUNDBITE (French) Voyance Batinda, Kivu Fashion Week organizer: "The aim of this fourth edition was to bring together communities, different communities and especially communities in the East. That is why we invited several guests from the East. Rwanda, Uganda and so many other countries. We just wanted to share the message that we want peace, we wanted this peaceful and international cohabitation." 6. Various shots of audience 7. Close-up phone 8. SOUNDBITE (French) Vainqueur Akilimali, designer: "So it is in the spirit of reuniting all these peoples here who have been martyred for a long time by the war. We wanted to bring them together in resilience, in hope and in solidarity." 9. Various shots models on the runway 10. SOUNDBITE (French) Dety Darba, singer: "I think it is another way to denounce, and to show that what is happening in our country is not just the negative, because beyond the war, we live, we create, we are resilient and we try to move forward as best we can." 11. Various shots models walk the runway STORYLINE: In the garden of Goma’s Serena Hotel, models walked down a runway showing off everything from formal evening gowns to fashion-forward twists on traditional African attire. This is the fourth edition of Kivu Fashion Week, founded in 2022 by Congolese designer Voyance Batinda. The Serena Hotel was just months ago at the center of Rwanda-backed M23 rebels’ takeover of the city, during a conflict that continues to rage in the country's east despite the U.S.-brokered peace agreement signed earlier this month. Just last week, M23 took control of yet another city in eastern Congo in a deadly offensive. Though Kivu Fashion Week was founded during less volatile times, Batinda still sees the importance in continuing the show. He said the aim of this year’s edition was to bring together different countries. "That is why we invited several guests from the East. Rwanda, Uganda and so many other countries. We just wanted to share the message that we want peace, we wanted this peaceful and international cohabitation,” he said. Designer Vainqueur Akilimali echoed Batinda’s sentiments, saying he wanted to bring together different people who had been affected by war. “We wanted to bring them together in resilience, in hope and in solidarity." More than 100 armed groups are vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern Congo, near the border with Rwanda, with M23 the most prominent. The conflict has created one of the world’s most significant humanitarian crises. The region has suffered under conflict for more than three decades, with the current conflict having roots in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when Hutu soldiers and militias killed between 500,000 and 1 million minority Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus and the Indigenous Twa. When Tutsi-led rebels stopped the genocide and ousted the Hutu government, nearly 2 million Hutus fled into neighboring Congo, fearing reprisals. Rwandan authorities accused the authorities in Kinshasa of sheltering those responsible for the mass killings among the civilian refugees, most of whom had returned when Rwanda first invaded Congo in 1996. But Kigali said the remaining Hutu fighters in eastern Congo are still a threat to Rwanda’s Tutsi population, and wants them neutralized. =========================================================== Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...