Documenting Refugees for peace in DRCongo

Thank you for your support to the protection of refugees in Eastern democratic Republic of Congo, we are happy with the progress but more remain to do, we believe that together we can solve this problem.  

Background information

The protection for refugees in North Kivu and in the Democratic Republic of Congo means the following:

Registration and Refugee Documents to every refugee and asylum seeker in DRC,

Creating settlements for all refugees and asylum seekers in DRC where they can live,

Security for everyone to ensure that no one is killed, deported, assassinated, forced to disappear, recruited in armed groups, raped, abused among others,

Refugees and asylum seekers have access to humanitarian relief aid,

The promotion of durable solutions which are local integration, voluntary repatriation and resettlement to the third country,

Here is what we have achieved

Commitment from various statements of the President of DRC to ensure the protection of refugees, this is helping us to change the negative attitudes of people and other stakeholders,

In December 2022 for the very first time in history UNHCR recognized that Rwandan refugees do not want repatriation,

The UN Mission in DRC (MONUSCO) stopped the Ogutahuka Programme Radio Programme which was giving refugees wrong information about the situation in Rwanda in order to seduce them to repatriate,

Since 2022 up to now we have witnessed the end of forced repatriation of refugees mainly back to Rwanda, end of assassination and all forms of forced disappearance and deportation,

Reduction of all forms of arbitrary arrests and detentions of refugees and asylum seekers in North Kivu, refugees are no longer arrested and detained just because they do not have Documents,

We have held meetings with different security services and local authorities about refugees and have assured us with commitments,

Available legal representation of refugees through our legal services,

Grant of refugee status to more than 6,000 refugees in Goma since 2022, and who now have opportunities to health services and education of their children through UNHCR,

Interactions and awareness campaigns among Civil Society and other organizations,

Free movement of refugees in North Kivu and accessing services in public using their Refugee Cards without discrimination,

Putting in place the Refugee Thematic Group and a group of Journalists who are engaged on refugee issues,

Two refugee Community Information Sessions per week,

Office work and three volunteers engaged in this work

Our key priorities

To advocate for the registration of all refugees and to grant them refugee Identification Cards,

To advocate for the change of policies especially in to end all political move that criminalize refugees and turn refugees into political tools, to advocate also for the change of actors in UNHCR and CNR who deal with refugee issues especially those who are biased and who seem to work for Rwanda,

To monitor the current progress and maximize the above achievements in order to be expanded to all refugees and asylum seekers,

To engage leaders at local, provincial and national levels in order to provide land and create settlements for refugees in DRC,

To advocate for refugees to access humanitarian relief aid and empower refugees through livelihood activities,

To bring the debate about the protection of refugees at national and International levels,

Opportunities

With the current Military regime in North Kivu it creates rooms to advocate and achieve the desire for refugee camps,

Debate on refugee issues in order to form a consensus and the need to engage local leaders at the community levels,

The current period of elections is much favorable to engage candidates and push them to make strong commitments towards the protection of refugees,

It is possible to engage the Minister of Internal Affairs who is from the current ruling party and propose some reforms,

The need to empower more refugees in order to make them strong advocate for their causes at all levels community, provincial, national, regional and international,

Challenges

The main challenges we have right now are still located at two levels:

The first is the total silence of the International Community on issues about refugees in DRC,

The second challenge is the lack of funds in order to push for what we want to do at all levels local, provincial, national, regional and international levels,

In order to solve these challenges we need to get allies at the international level, but also be able to mobilize the needed funds.

We continue with the mobilization of funds which can help to engage on what we desire to do, we believe in this and it is possible to solve it. Please continue to support us.

Thanks