Qualla: Pweto https://qualla.com/pweto en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/k/x/pweto-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Pweto https://qualla.com/pweto Pweto: Introduction https://qualla.com/pweto/ Photo credit Tom Skrinar, CC BY-SA 2.0. In early December 2000, sixty thousand civilians fled across the Luvua River with whatever they could carry. Behind them, Pweto was falling. The Battle of Pweto - one of the major engagements of the Second Congo War - was more than a tactical defeat for the government forces of Laurent-Desire Kabila. It was a rupture. Three thousand government soldiers crossed into Zambia to escape the Rwandan-backed advance. Thirty-three tanks and armored vehicles were burned to keep them from enemy hands. A T-62 tank, misloaded onto the only ferry across the Luvua, sank and took the crossing with it. Six weeks later, President Kabila was assassinated by his own bodyguards in Kinshasa, 2,000 kilometers away, and the course of the war shifted. Pweto itself - a town of fishing families on the northern shore of Lake Mweru - had become shorthand for how badly things could go.

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Image: Tom Skrinar | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/k/x/pweto-wp/kwkx-pweto-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Pweto: The Lake and the Border https://qualla.com/pweto/ Photo credit Tom Skrinar, CC BY-SA 2.0. Pweto lies where Lake Mweru meets the Luvua River, a place that in peacetime is mostly known for fish. The lake holds Oreochromis macrochir - a tilapia species local people call the kabambale - along with abundant other fish, and fishing has always been the backbone of the local ...

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Image: Tom Skrinar | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/k/x/pweto-wp/kwkx-pweto-the-lake-and-the-border.mp3 0:06 2 full Pweto: The Battle https://qualla.com/pweto/ Photo credit Tom Skrinar, CC BY-SA 2.0. Pweto in late 2000 was already a humanitarian crisis. Civilians fleeing fighting elsewhere in Katanga had tripled the town's population. Health care collapsed under the strain - 1,800 cases of cholera and 150 deaths had been recorded in the first eleven months of the year alone. ...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/k/x/pweto-wp/kwkx-pweto-the-battle.mp3 0:06 3 full Pweto: The Aftermath https://qualla.com/pweto/ Photo credit Tom Skrinar, CC BY-SA 2.0. The fall of Pweto did not simply rearrange a battlefield. On 16 January 2001, President Laurent-Desire Kabila was shot dead by one of his bodyguards inside his palace. The political landscape shifted overnight. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, pressured by a cold reception in Washi...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/k/x/pweto-wp/kwkx-pweto-the-aftermath.mp3 0:06 4 full Pweto: What Remains https://qualla.com/pweto/ Photo credit Tom Skrinar, CC BY-SA 2.0. In September 2011, MONUSCO - the United Nations peacekeeping force - reopened a representative office in Pweto, hoping to stabilize the area through elections. The rebuilding has been slow. In July 2011, the Australian miner Mawson West announced positive feasibility results for ...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/k/x/pweto-wp/kwkx-pweto-what-remains.mp3 0:06 5 full