Our very first meeting with refugees in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo

First Community Dialogue with refugees in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo

On Thursday March 6^th, 2026 we managed to bring together 14 refugee leaders together in Kinshasa for our very first dialogue on the situation of refugees, the challenges they are facing, the opportunities, and our approach in order to promote the rights of refugees.

The meeting which took three (3) hours started by the self-introduction of the participants and then the chairman of the Community introduced the guest-speakers from COJESKI-DRC.

Taking the flow Mr. Kulihoshi Musikami Pecos shared his long history as a refugee which attracted the attention of the audience, Pecos also exposed about his advocacy on refugee rights in both Uganda and Eastern DRC which attracted the admiration of the audience especially that some among them had about Pecos but have never seen him.

The general situation of refugees was briefed, starting from UNHCR controversial statistics, the lack of refugee documents for thousands, the lack of trust in the whole refugee regime which is perceived as working with some countries, the refugee documents are not recognized and respected by local authorities, the high discrimination, lack of humanitarian relief aid, no access to Conventional Travel Document and no access to resettlement, are among the common and already known challenges which we had already been addressing while in North Kivu before the war.

During the discussions we realized that generally are highly ignorant about so many things happening, few only access to information on Radio, Social Media, Tv, and most of the information is generally political. Refugees have no information about their rights, about the existing policies governing refugees in the world, about various activities happening in the world focusing on refugees, about activities of other refugee leaders in different places and countries.

Most of the refugee leaders who attended have very ideas and suggestions about solutions to their problems and what they can do as leaders in order to solve different community problems, most of their arguments were focused towards UNHCR as unique provider of solutions.

Among refugees who attended a particular attention was placed on Rwandan refugees who for many years have been living in difficult situation. On one side, over the years Rwanda Government together with its ally within the United Nations has labelled all Rwandan Refugees as Genocidaires and FDLR, on the side the Congolese host communities have accused the very same refugees of being spies and working for Rwanda in order to maintain wars in DRC. Despite that the meeting was briefed about abuses against Rwandan refugees in Kinshasa before, the meeting also recognized that these abuses reduced during this new regime, however there is fear of Rwanda infiltration in DRC.

The meeting realized various opportunities that need to be capitalized in order to improve especially the promotion of interaction of refugees among themselves, capacity building of refugees about their rights and obligations, the visibility of refugees, activities of awareness of the host communities and dialogue at all levels with local leaders about the situation of refugees and the need to promote activities which bring refugees together including supporting to create their own associations.

Participants also indicated about the deplorable situation of vulnerable people in their communities such as orphans, elderly, single women, young girls from poor families, the sick and those in prison.

More meetings will continue and various activities will continue in order to empower refugees and create enough space for their protection. Our next meeting will bring together refugees and various actors of the Civil Society.

The participants where happy to have this opportunity to come together and also share their ideas on what they think can be done.