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Throughout the initial hours of the morning, Baraka wanders through the alleys of Goma. He chooses an incorrect path and runs into bandits. Back home, his father flicks through TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. Words are absent. The stillness is broken only by crackles on the radio.

When dusk arrives, Baraka is sitting on the shore of Lake Kivu, looking south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, seeing no optimism in either direction.

That marks the beginning to the comic strip depicting Goma's uncertainties, the debut comic by a 31-year-old visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, released earlier this year. The story portrays daily challenges in Goma through the eyes of a child.

Prominent Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who captured the public’s attention in comic strips in the past, mainly worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city more than a thousand miles from Goma. But there are limited contemporary comics based in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo produced by Congolese artists.

Creativity offers optimism. It’s something to start with.

“I've been illustrating since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli says of his evolution as an artist. He began to pursue the craft dedicatedly only after finishing high school, registering at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were halted by financial difficulties.

His first personal display was in January 2020, curated with a cultural institute in Goma. “It was a really big exhibition. People reacted strongly how everyone reacted to it,” says Musavuli.

But just a year later, the violent M23 militia, aided by Rwanda, resurfaced in eastern DRC and shattered Goma’s vulnerable art scene.

“Creatives in the city are really reliant on foreign exhibitions like that,” he says. “If they’re not around, it will appear like we don’t exist. This is the reality right now.”

When M23 captured Goma in January this year, the city’s cultural hubs faltered alongside its economy. “Art gives hope, it’s something to start with, but our circumstances here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really invested any more,” says Musavuli.

Talented individuals and art have long been relegated to the periphery of the state agenda. “Creativity isn't something the government prioritises,” he says.

Leveraging Instagram, he began disseminating personal and collective experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, recounting his childhood, he labeled an interactive story: “My homeland teaches running before walking.”

In one clip, which has since generated more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an unfinished painting, while explosions are heard in the background.

It was against this backdrop that this visual story was created. The story is charged with social commentary, showing how normal activities have been stripped away and replaced with perpetual insecurity.

Yet Musavuli maintains the short comic was not meant as explicit political commentary: “I am not a political artist or activist but I say what people around me are thinking. That’s how I do my art.”

We might not have power but not doing anything is so much worse. When someone hears you, it’s something.

Inquired about he feels able to express himself freely under control, he says: “Free expression exists in Congo, but are you truly safe after you speak?”

Producing art that appears too critical of M23 or the government can be risky, he says: “In Kinshasa it’s normal to talk about everything that’s wrong with the rebels. But in Goma it’s standard to not do that because it’s not safe for you.

“From an administrative perspective, we are cut off from the ‘actual’ Congo,” he says. Unlike other cities in the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, Goma remains under full occupation by the M23.

As stated by Musavuli, some artists have come under duress to create pro-M23 content out of concern for their lives. “As a creative with a voice in Goma, the M23 can leverage you, sometimes by compulsion, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “The situation is complex to judge. But I cannot permit myself to do something like that.”

While danger is one challenge, earning an income through the arts is another obstacle. “It’s a problem in Congo that people don’t buy art. Many of the artists here have to do other things to get by.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a blog site.

But he adds: “I don't solely doing art to sell it.”

Regardless of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue producing work that gives voice to the overlooked people of Goma. “People here endure – this is not the first time we have been through this.

“Even without control but inaction is so much worse. Even if your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”

At the end of this visual narrative, Baraka walks alone down an empty road, his head held high. “Tomorrow might look exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Believing in better days is already pushing against.”