Inquirer Highlights Congolese Refugees' New Start in Philadelphia
November 12, 2014
"Annonciata Nsenga kicked off her sneakers, stood on a chair, and tapped a nail into a wall of her rented rowhouse in Point Breeze.
Eighteen years after she and her husband, Jean Pierre, both Congolese, fled their homeland's violence for a refugee camp in Rwanda - and five months into their new lives in Philadelphia - the rail-thin mother of five finally felt comfortable enough to hang a fresh portrait of the family, dressed nattily, smiling hopefully.
'We left because of war,' Jean Pierre, 58, a former nurse, said Tuesday, citing persistent fighting among Congolese factions in a land of child soldiers, ethnic rivalries, and bloody battles for control of the country's natural resources."
