Qualla: Moba, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Moba, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The ferry from Kalemie arrives at a dirt jetty. From there, a rutted road climbs 400 meters out of the lake basin and up to Kirungu, the larger town on the plateau above. That five-kilometer stretch of dirt is most of what connects Moba to the outside world. There are no paved roads here, and none within several hundred kilometers in any direction. When the rains come hard in February and March, the two dirt tracks that reach Moba from the west and south dissolve into impassable mud. For weeks at a time, Moba belongs to the lake and the mountains, as it has for centuries.

Moba, Democratic Republic of the Congo: A Shelf Between Water and Stone

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Moba occupies a sliver of land along the western shore of Lake Tanganyika's southern reach, 140 kilometers southeast of Kalemie. Behind the town rises the Marungu massif, a range of steep, rugged hills that hems the settlement against the water. The Mulobozi River cuts through th...

Moba, Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Belgian Ghost

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The town the White Fathers founded here in 1893 was not called Moba. The Catholic missionaries established their post at Kirungu on the plateau and named it Baudoinville, after Prince Baudouin of Belgium. For most of the twentieth century, that imperial name stuck to the map. The...

Moba, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Triangle of Death

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Between 1998 and 2003, the Second Congo War drew in nine African nations and killed millions. The triangle of territory between Pweto, Moba, and Moliro became one of its grimmest battlegrounds. In November 2000, DRC government forces launched an offensive here, fighting alongside...

Moba, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Power From a Small Italian Gift

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For most of its history, Moba had no electricity at all. That changed in 1996, when an Italian NGO called Mondo Giusto funded a small hydroelectric dam on the Ngandwe Fuamba River, just in time to keep the town lit through the chaos that followed. Today the 25,000 or so residents...