40 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Angelique, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, was severely retraumatized. As we huddled in the safe haven, she knew they were coming for her. local security guard, both inside the compound when the gates were breached (and, in my mind, heroes), told me that the first words shouted by the first people to enter were: “Where is the Tutsi?” That was a direct reference to my wife: Angelique was born in Rwanda but had been a U.S. citizen for 30 years. Friends of Angelique in Kinshasa, including our landlord, separately told her they had heard about a specific plan: to kill me first, and then to rape and kill her. To our knowledge, no other personal residences were specifically targeted in Kinshasa that day. And other than much-appreciated and heartfelt expressions of sympathy from the acting USAID assistant administrator and the U.S. ambassador, there has been no formal communication from USAID Washington or the State Department acknowledging that the attack took place. I filed the standard loss report and was reimbursed at roughly fifty cents on the dollar. The Congolese government also eventually contributed some restitution. But the arithmetic of reimbursement forms misses the point entirely. What we lost that afternoon cannot be captured on a spreadsheet. Among the things taken from that house were the only known photographs of Angelique’s parents. Those images existed nowhere else in the world. They are simply gone. So are 30 years of personal and professional records, family documents, and the accumulated material evidence of a life lived together, a family. Angelique, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, was severely retraumatized. As we huddled in the safe haven, she knew they were coming for her. No reimbursement formula reaches any of that. The next morning at 2 a.m., the evacuation of all nonemergency staff and families began. Angelique was evacuated across the river to Brazzaville, her eyes still glassy with shock, while I stayed behind to help manage the crisis. I still clung to the illusion that there was a program to be run. Top: Fires burning outside the author’s residence in DR Congo on January 28, 2025. Bottom: The author’s car, after the attack on the residence. Above: Looters emptied the entire house of its contents, leaving nothing behind. PHOTOSCOURTESY JOHN DUNLOP
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