Journalist Xavier Aldekoa (Barcelona, 1981) was hiding with 4,000 other people in a church in Buca, a small town in the Central African Republic. They were trying to protect themselves from the civil war. The forest around the church was full of corpses, and Aldekoa was trying to interview one of the hiding teenagers. The background noise from the church made it difficult to have an intelligible conversation, so they went outside. Less than 50 meters away, there were some people who needed some fresh air after days without seeing the blue sky. It was a relatively safe place compared to the danger beyond. But that safety quickly vanished.

The search for money by Joan Laporta's board has led Barça to close a sponsorship agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most corrupt countries in the world (ranked 163 out of 180 by Transparency International). It also suffers from extreme lack of water and food in some areas; has serious infrastructure deficiencies and is experiencing a period of insecurity due to the territorial advance of the M23, a predominantly Tutsi rebel military group. Because of all this, activists, journalists and other members of Congolese civil society express their rejection of their government's agreement to allocate more than 40 million euros to sponsor Barça's training shirt for four seasons with the slogan "DR Congo – Heart of Africa (Congo, Heart of Africa). The alliance is official as of this Wednesday.

Gaël Faye (Bujumbura, 1992) arrives late from a talk at the French Lycée in Barcelona because the students couldn't stop asking him questions about his two novels, A small country (2016; Empúries/Salamandra, 2018; trans. Mercè Ubach) and The jacaranda (2024; Salamandra, 2025; trans. Lydia Vázquez) More than two million copies of its debut were sold in the forty languages in which it can be read. of the genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda. The jacaranda, who received the Renaudot Prize, starts again in 1994 to approach another young man, Milan: despite having grown up in Versailles, he becomes increasingly interested in Rwanda, the country his mother had to flee.

"I am no longer in Goma since my employment. I am ready to spend some time away from my family and loved ones," explains Steward Muhindo, a Congolese researcher, to ARA. The troops of the M23, the guerrilla group that has been operating in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo since 2012, They occupied Goma at the end of JanuaryThis is a key moment in their latest campaign against the Congolese government, which has been underway since March 2022 and has allowed them to consolidate their dominance of territories rich in gold, coltan and other natural resources.