This year, the Tshimanga family will celebrate Christmas together for the first time in four years. Lorna Siggins hears an extraordinary story of how a Congolese family was almost destroyed by harassment, torture and enforced separation in its war-torn country - and then found safety in Galway

Gaby Tshimanga was walking through Salthill in Galway recently when a man rolled down the window of his car and roared at him. He couldn't make out what the man was saying, but he knew it wasn't "céad míle fáilte", "season's greetings" or "welcome to the West".

Had the driver known what the young Congolese pastor had gone through - and was still re-living - in the last three years, he might have reserved his bile for another occasion. He might have even stopped and offered to shake his hand.

This month Gaby, his wife Mado, and their family will celebrate their first Christmas together in four years, after a prolonged period of harassment, imprisonment, torture and enforced separation.

When the young couple stepped off a bus in Clifden, Co Galway, in March 2000, with their two young children, few could have guessed that their hearts were breaking. Hours before, they had boarded a plane, with no option but to leave their two older daughters several thousand miles away in central Africa.

The pastor was in very poor physical health, having escaped only days before from the cramped and brutal conditions of a prison cell. He shared that cell with up to 40 inmates who were subjected to daily beatings and torture at the hands of government forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).

Every so often, men were taken away; they did not return. Somehow, Gaby's own faith, and a promise from a Canadian pastor, protected him from losing his mind.

The background to his experience is the decades of abuse and suffering experienced by the Congolese people, as colonialsts and mercenaries repeatedly exploited their country which is rich in minerals and bordered by nine states. The current conflict dates back to the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Three million have died and millions more have been displaced in what has been described as Africa's "world war".

In 1998, a year after President Kabila took power amid high hopes of a better future, Gaby and Mado were living in her home town of Goma. Gaby had a degree in theology and was working as an evangelical minister, Mado was a computer analyst with a government ministry, and the couple had three daughters, one of them a newborn.

Then Tutsi forces known as the Banyamulenge, backed by Rwanda, took over the eastern region. Church leaders like Gaby were under pressure to preach a message supportive of the rebel movement. Fearing for their safety, the family moved to the capital, Kinshasa, where Gaby had relatives.

That in itself was a difficult journey, which required transit through Kenya. "And when we arrived in Kinshasa, we learned that everyone who lived in the east of the Congo was a suspect, and was in some way linked to rebel movements," Gaby says.

This was partly fuelled by President Kabila's paranoia and distrust of everyone but those immediately around him.

In 1999, when the couple's fourth child and first boy, Salem, was only a few weeks old, Gaby preached at an overnight evangelical prayer meeting, and made a biblical reference on the theme of political failure and achievement of peace.

At 5 a.m., soldiers came to Gaby's house and took him away. Four of them returned hours later, where Mado was nursing Salem: she cannot talk about her own horrendous experiences that day for cultural reasons.

Ill and distraught, Mado returned to Goma, travelling hundreds of miles through Congo-Brazzaville, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Nicole, her first born, was permitted to go with her, but she was forced to leave Yasmin, her second daughter, behind with friends.

Languishing in jail, Gaby Tshimanga did not know if he would ever see his wife and family again. Nor did he know how they were surviving in a terrifying conflict where rape, assault, imprisonment and murder were daily punishments for those who resisted the rebels. By chance, he met a Canadian missionary whom he had known before in Goma.

"Pastor Len" gave him news of his family and promised to try and get him out. "I did not believe him," Gaby says. "Every day, I thought that tomorrow I would be the one who would be taken away and killed." On March 5th, 2000, the missionary came to the prison; while the prisoners were out of their cell, a guard approached Gaby, and directed him to a toilet. He should stay there and not move. Relying on his instincts, Gaby did so; hours passed, darkness fell, and then the Canadian arrived to whisk him away.

Mado, meanwhile, had heard twice from the missionary. "He could not say much because the phone lines were tapped," she recalls. "The first time he told me to hope. On the second call, he told me to collect money and to go to Congo-Brazzaville. He couldn't tell me why." She packed a couple of overnight bags, took the youngest children, Nissi and Salem, with her, and left Nicole with her cousin, believing that she would return in several days. It was the last she was to see of her eldest for over two years - while her younger daughter, Yasmin, was also still in Kinshasa.

On March 6th, 2000, she and her husband - severely beaten and close to breaking point - were reunited in Congo-Brazzaville. The Canadian arranged flights for them out of the country. Carrying only Gaby's identification card from his church, their wedding certificate, two small bags and the clothes they stood up in, Gaby, Mado, Nissi and Salem arrived in Dublin on March 7th.

For the first fortnight, they stayed in Kilmacud House in Dublin, and they were then put on a bus - destination unknown. "Everyone was crying, particularly after we left Athlone," Mado remembers. The mixed group of nationalities had no idea of their fate, nor did most of them have the language to ask.

"When we arrived in Clifden, I remember that Michael Gibbons (owner of the Dún Gibbons hostel) arrived on the bus to welcome us, and some people refused to leave because they were so afraid," Mado says. "But Gaby was so tired and sick and just needed to rest." For three to four weeks, Gaby did not leave his room in the hostel. It was a bewildering time, as the family applied for asylum. Only when their application was accepted could they initiate the procedure to have their older girls returned to them.

Fortunately, when Mado met the local general practitioner in Clifden she discovered a fluent French speaker - and from then on, their luck seemed to change.

Gaby was sent to Dublin for treatment; counselling was arranged. The Clifden Refugee Support Group and a network of people in Clifden, Letterfrack, Roundstone, Ballyconneely and Galway city offered practical support. Last year, it was felt that the family should move into Galway where they would be closer to psychological services. In September 2001, just a few weeks after their interview with the immigration service, they were given refugee status. The couple were overjoyed.

There were further obstacles, however. For the best part of a year, they were in constant contact with officials from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), with the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to try and speed up their two daughters' repatriation. Phone calls to Goma and Kinshasa were expensive and highly risky, and in the meantime one of the girls became very ill.

Last Christmas passed, and still they were not together. The unbelievable occurred several weeks later when a volcanic eruption destroyed much of Goma, and they had no way of knowing whether Nicole and their wider family had survived. Terrifying images on satellite television compounded their distress; after repeated phone attempts, Gaby learned that Nicole, her grandfather, and Mado's relatives were homeless, but safe.

Even as the UNHCR worked to repatriate the girls, they were faced with further delays; the International Red Cross could pay for their flights to Ireland, but this could take time. A Connemara businessman - a member of the aforementioned network who prefers to remain anonymous - said he would finance the plane tickets to expedite their return.

In August, Nicole finally arrived - a young 14-year old girl who had not seen her mother for over two and a half years, and her father for four years. Shortly after the emotional reunion, the pregnant Mado was taken into University College Hospital, Galway, for an emergency Caesarean section. The birth was a particular joy because Gaby, who had been so badly beaten, had believed he could never father a child again.

Two weeks after the birth, and just a day after the little baby boy was brought home from hospital, the family was fully reunited at last. Yasmin arrived with her father from Dublin, after an arduous flight from Kinshasa to Paris. She was wearing only the clothes she stood up in when she stepped off the bus in Galway.

The new baby has been named Christagit, symbolising "separation, a hard time, and God working to reunite", the couple explain. Their three girls attend schools in Galway, and Salem is at pre-school in the Rahoon Family Centre.

Several weeks ago, after a long search for work, Gaby was accepted on a FÁS computer course. Like many of his compatriots, Gaby Tshimanga is a man whose identity depends on his ability to work. He has worked voluntarily with refugees in Galway, but access to paid employment has proven difficult, largely because of this State's failure to recognise skills and qualifications gained elsewhere. Although their native tongues are Lingala and French, he and Mado have learned English with remarkable speed.

HE IS very critical of the Government's failure to distinguish between economic migrants and genuine asylum seekers. "If you don't make that distinction in categories, you encourage abuses of the system and you encourage people to tell lies," he says. He also believes that the churches should take a greater role in fostering multi-culturalism and counteracting ignorance and fear.

Late last month Gaby was involved in a serious car accident as he was travelling to Galway to attend his computer course. He is now recuperating, after a leg operation in Mullingar General Hospital, but is determined to be back on his feet for December 25th.

"We are all in the house now," he says. Rarely have seven simple words meant so much.