Mai Mai

A militia group in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The name Mai Mai derives from the Kiswahili for water (maji), and refers to the militiamen’s custom of daubing themselves before battle with a mixture of palm oil and water.

Jeffrey Gettleman described the Mai Mai in The New York Times:

With their guns, leaf headdresses and special potions that many fighters believe make bullets bounce off them, they are a surreal – but still deadly – dimension to Congo’s civil wars. …

In the past few weeks, [the Mai Mai] have emerged as spoilers, fighting on when the other armed groups have agreed to stop.

According to Gettleman, the Mai Mai are prone to fight against all sides: during just one week the militia clashed with rebels, United Nations peacekeepers, and Congolese government troops. In The Guardian, Anna Husarska quoted a Congolese friend’s description of this chaos as “a basket of crabs,” and she observed, “As always, the main victims are civilians caught in the crossfire.”

There are, Gettleman said, “Thousands of Mai Mai fighters in dozens of loosely connected Mai Mai groups scattered across [the] Congo. The movement started decades ago when Congolese communities formed militias to protect themselves and tapped into local customs as a way to inspire the fighters. … Many of the Mai Mai fighters grease themselves up with a mixture of palm oil and holy water before stepping on the battlefield. Often the emollient – and some homemade necklaces – is all they wear.”