Documenting Refugees for peace in DRCongo

The management of refugees as solution to wars and armed conflicts between DRC and Rwanda

We remain resolved to contribute to the promotion of peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo through concrete actions on issues around refugees. The effective management of refugees will end community conflicts in refugee host communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo especially open wars in different places over land ownership and land access mainly in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri. At the same time will ensure that refugees are no longer considered by Rwanda as a threat.

Identification

In North Kivu, while the Armed group of AFC/M23 backed by Rwanda arrested and deported refugees back to Rwanda on ground that they were members of FDLR (Rwandan Armed Group based in DRC), we documented the cases and wrote a clear letter to UNHCR showing that people arrested and deported back to Rwanda were vulnerable refugees and have nothing to do with FDLR, this contributed to the current put on hold of these deportations. In the same way we have addressed two letters to UNHCR Geneva, Rwanda, DRC and the United Nations Human Rights to prove us how refugees are considered as FDLR because we realized that Rwanda was misleading people on this issue, for the Government of Rwanda everyone who is a refugee in DRC and who does not want to return back to Rwanda is FDLR.

In North Kivu, we wrote a letter to UNHCR, DRC and Rwanda opposing the so called unilateral repatriation agreement focusing on Rwandan refugees in North Kivu and South Kivu, we also protested about the wrong number of 600 refugees in detention centers in Goma which UNHCR claimed transit centers, yet the number of refugees are more than 2,000 and requested UNHCR to end any form of forced repatriation.

In Uvira, South Kivu, we are working on helping authorities to know the numbers of refugees in this areas, in order to come up with an appropriate approach for their protection. We realized that a big number of refugees came from Burundi in 1976 up to now they have no documents and they are part of ongoing ethnic conflicts because they have to mingle with Congolese and acquire Congolese documents in order to survive.

In Kalemie, Tanganyika Province, we have also started the identification process and basing on the information in our possession, many refugees are in Kalemie and in Tanganyika without refugee documents and this has created a lot conflicts and confusion among people.

Lastly we are currently holding two Google Meetings per month to share information among Congolese and come up with ideas that can help to promote proper management of refugees.

Our activities are badly affected by the lack of funds in order to create a greater impact and provoke a debate at national level. For peace to be restored in DRC, we need to fully address the issues around forced migrants and promote their effective protection. This is our urgent appeal to you in order to save lives of innocent people who are killed yet we can fix and end these conflicts.

We remain the only ones who organized public activities on the World Refugee Day which focused on refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Activities where held in Goma, Uvira and Kalemie.