Why delivering the mail in Congo is so hard

A HISTORIAN REMARKED, of the ancient Persian postal system, that “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Snow is not much of a problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but dozens of rebel groups make delivering the mail rather difficult. So do bad roads and a dysfunctional government.

The main post office in Goma, a city of 2m in eastern Congo, is a vast rectangle with turret and colonnade, built by the Belgian colonial government in 1955. Inside it a worker tips a sack of letters from Kinshasa, the capital, onto a table. He sorts them into wooden lockers according to their destined village, town or region. Most will never get there.

The post office’s director, Dominique Molisho, reckons that only 40% of letters reach their recipients. Many houses in Goma do not have addresses, he explains. Moreover, people move often. Matters are even trickier outside the city in the rest of North Kivu province, an area larger than Switzerland where more than 40 rebel groups lurk in the bush.