Refugee Rights Congo, Democratic Republic of the Project #60982

Help dialogue at all levels about refugees in DRC

by Collective of Youth Organizations for Solidarity in DRCongo (COJESKI/DRC, Coordination of North Kivu

Project Report | Apr 10, 2024
Decriminalize Rwandan refugees in DRCongo

By Kulihoshi M | Provincial Coordinator of North Kivu

Information with local communities about refugees

Engaging on various activities to decriminalize refugees in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,

First of all, allow us to thank you so much for your generoeus financial contributions towards this cause, we also thank all those who have supported our projects towards refugees in DRCongo.

Most of the refugee population in eastern DRCongo come from Rwanda and from Burundi, and currently Rwanda is commemorating 100 Days of Genocide which are believed to have been committed by those who are asylum seekers in DRCongo. And his speech on Sunday April 7^th, 2024 during the launch of the Genocide President Paul Kagame continued with his approach of criminalizing all Hutus who are in DRCongo as responsible for the genocide, we do not agree with this and we are pushing for the establishment of the truth of who did what, but also at the same raising up issues of the genocide against Rwandan Refugees in DRCongo.

What we have been able to do

We are glad to share with the audience that more than 90% of the current Rwandan refugee population in DRCongo are young people below 40 years, some during the genocide in 1994 they were either children bellow ten years and others were born in DRCongo. According to the United Nations the current Rwandan refugee population in DRC is composed of 78% women and children, which are more victims of various violations and are not involved in the geneocide.

After four months, now we have the very first draft of the new refugee policy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we really thank our volunteers from Florida University who helped us to make the very first draft of the new refugee policy. Now with this document we are able to engage on more discussions with other stakeholders at different levels.

We pushed for the protection and the security of refugees in North Kivu, the general physical protection of refugees in North Kivu is very fine and there are no targets towards refugees in particular.

This has been achieved through regular meetings with security services and awareness campaigns and activities, and various media engagement which have helped the wider audience to know more about these refugees and propose better ways to help them. We have also engaged with the United Nations Mission in DRCongo to ensure that her programs aim at the protection of refugees.

What remains to be done?

As per now we need to keep on engaging actors at various levels on the situation of refugees in Eastern DRCongo,

We need to collect accurate information and dissiminate it on the situation of refugees in eastern DRCongo in order to reduce the propaganda of criminalization, stigmatization and exclusion of those refugee who need protection,

Push for the legal reforms as we have already started it, this needs to advocate for a new refugee policy in the Democratic Republic of Congo covering the whole protection of refugees,

Training stakeholders and refugees about their rights and about the law in DRCongo, the conventions and other legal instruments,

Advocate for an effective protection of refugees especially Rwandan refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo,

Meeting with community leaders about refugees

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Dec 19, 2023
we exposed all what they wanted to hide the world

By Kenneth | Fundarinsing Volunteer

Suspected to be Rwandans in the DRC Delegation

Thank you so much for the support, refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo did not participate in the Global Refugee Forum Summit but we partnered with our fellow refugees from other countries.

We came to you to seek your support in order to ensure that refugees and the entire civil society in the Democratic Republic of Congo participate for the first time in the international conference on refugees. But again this did not happen because as you can see, we did not raise the necessary money we wanted, secondly we did not get accreditation from UNHCR and lastly we did not have the necessary travel documents both to refugees and Congolese Nationals within the Civil Society.

However for the first time in the history of this country, the event of the Summit reached in the hears of most of the decision makers and the summit which was supposed to done in secret as far as the Democratic Republic of Congo was concerned became more a public issue among political leaders and the civil society who were involved. Through advocacy finally UNHCR had to make public announcements about this summit.

Once again through strong advocacy we put in place finally the Ministry of Internal Affairs sent a delegation to Geneva and for the first time again in history of this country, it was made public that Rwandans were among the DRC Delegation to the Summit. It is for us a great move to see that at least now we know and we help the world to know who are those ones taking poor decisions against refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this was one among the areas where over the years we lacked clear information. We strongly regret that Rwanda who is oppressing refugees in DRC is also at the same time the one to represent them in Geneva, we were highly shocked to observe that Rwanda infiltrated the whole refugee regime in DRC, and that needs to be corrected as soon as possible so that refugees in DRC can feel safe.

The money so far raised will be used to organize a Press Conference just after these general elections in DRC towards the end of January 2024, where various issues about conference will be raised and discussed.

The next move is to work on a strong advocacy programme towards issues of refugees at all levels in DRC through dialogues at the community levels, provincial level and national level, this again will be the very first initiative in DRC’s history, at the same time, we should empower refugees in leadership.

Through this fundraising we intend to involve so much the media and community leaders in order to have issues of refugees being discussed and not left behind.

Interaction with Journalists in Goma about summit

Meeting with various actors on issue of the summit

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