December 2 1, 2018
Nyankunde, Democratic Republic of
the CongoNyankunde is far too beautiful of a town for the atroc-
ities humans have committed in it. Surrounded by sa-
vanna, it sits lush and pastoral under a clutch of hills
that look like green knuckles. It is a hospital town,
known throughout the country for both Congolese
and international specialists. It was a hospital town
in 2002, when a militia supported by a displaced tribe
that had not been allowed to use the hospital raced
down from the top of the hill and murdered roughly
3,000 civilians, many of them doctors and patients,
in what became the single largest day of death in the
Second Congo War, a nine-country conflagration that
lasted from 1998 to 2003. As the violence seethed, the
bricks of the hospital came down. Many of the build-
ings became roofless husks, toothless mouths, ruins.
And even then, Nyankunde was a beautiful town.
By 2004, the hospital had returned. It now has
several new buildings and new medical equipment
provided by humanitarian organizations such as Sa-
maritan’s Purse. It is staffed by doctors like Patrick
LaRochelle, who first visited the Congo just before
he started medical school, heard about the massacre,
and thought to himself: I never, ever want to live in
the Congo. But LaRochelle and his wife are religious
people, good people, who felt called by God to prac-
tice medicine in an underserved community. LaRo-
chelle’s wife is a nurse practitioner who grew up doing
humanitarian work in Haiti. After LaRochelle com-
pleted his residency, they applied to a program with
World Medical Mission, part of Samaritan’s Purse,
which listed the hospital in Nyankunde as a top op-
tion. They thought and prayed and asked friends for
advice, and, well, here they are.
LaRochelle—sinewy, bespectacled, unassuming—
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