Congolese refugees should not be Rwanda’s problem

Author: Josephine Kalembe

• 2023-01-11 05:01:00

Constant insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has led to more than five million people being displaced. More than one million Congolese have sought asylum, mostly within Africa, according to the UN Refugee agency.

To date, more than 70,000 Congolese refugees are registered in Rwanda alone, with numbers increasing daily. Recently, more than 100 Congolese refugees fled to Rwanda after they were forced to flee from their home country following the resumption of fighting between the M23 rebels and the Congolese army and its allied militia groups. Most Congolese refugees in Rwanda are Rwandophones who fled the ethnic cleansing happening in their country.

Mass murderers responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda fled and took refuge in eastern DRC. They later formed the FDLR and immediately attacked the Banyamulenge and the Tutsi herders.

As Alice Wairimu Nderitu, Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, has reported, in eastern DRC, the current violence is mainly the result of the refugee crisis which led to the flight of many criminals involved in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda to eastern DRC, forming armed groups such as the FDLR which are still active in eastern DRC.

A solution to the ongoing conflict in eastern DRC, she noted, would require addressing the underlying causes of the violence and learning from the past.

 Nderitu reported: "The abuses currently taking place in eastern DRC, including the targeting of civilians because of their ethnicity or presumed affiliation with warring parties, must stop. Our collective commitment to remember past atrocities is an obligation to prevent their recurrence.”

Unfortunately, the international community is not interested in solving problems. For very long, Congolese soldiers, Maï-Maï militiamen, and other groups, have teamed up with the FDLR, multiplying attacks to loot the property of people qualified as Tutsi and chase them away, or kill them. Today, thousands of them are languishing in refugee camps in exile.

In December 2022, during a peaceful protest in Kigeme refugee camp, in southern Rwanda, thousands of Congolese refugees rallied to protest against what they described as the silence of the international community over the killings of their Kinyarwanda-speaking relatives in eastern DRC.

The refugees appealed to the international community to protect their relatives in North Kivu province and other parts of DRC, saying they are “targeted on account of belonging to the Tutsi ethnic group.” The refugees, who have lived in Rwanda for more than two decades, also called on the UN and the AU to stop the atrocities committed by armed groups in eastern DRC.

One refugee, Lisele Bowune, who had been living in the camp since 2012, narrated her story to the media, describing her life in the camp as tough. She was married to a Tutsi man from Masisi. The couple has seven children. Unfortunately, Bowune is struggling in the camp, alone. Her husband was kidnapped before she fled, and that was the last time she ever saw him.

She condemned what she called a “silent Genocide happening in our country,” urging the DRC government to do something about it, so she can peacefully return home.

The Congolese Tutsi are being persecuted in their own home country. They are often told to ‘go back home’ meaning Rwanda.

Bowune’s story is a story of a million other Congolese refugees now scattered all over the world. They have lost their loved ones, dignity, property and nationality.

“We denounce the silence and hypocrisy of the international community about the ongoing genocide against Tutsi in the DRC,” shouted another protestor in Kigeme refugee camp.

The international community pretends that Congolese refugees do not exist, or that what made them refugees in the first place does not exist.

Congolese refugees do not want to leave Rwanda or any other country they are hosted in to go back to the chaos they fled from.

But not only has Kinshasa refused to hear the voices of its own citizens who want to go home,  peacefully but the international community, as well, has abandoned these people.

The Congolese refugee crisis is an international problem that requires an international solution. Remaining indifferent to the problem is being an equal accomplice.  And Rwanda should not accept to bear the burden for DRC’s irresponsibilities.