Meeting with refugees in Lubumbashi City Haut-Katanga Province -DRCongo

Briefing about the interaction meeting with refugees in Lubumbashi City, Haut-Katanga Province, the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday December 26^th, 2025.

Lubumbashi is the main city of the Haut-Katanga Province, it hosts thousands of refugees from Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Cameroon, Ivory Cost, and the Central African Republic among others. The exact number of refugees in the city is unknown but they are in thousands, among them some are fully registered and have the refugee documents while other have remained as asylum seekers for more than 15 to 20 years.

Most of refugees and asylum seekers are living in very poor communities where they are involved in small income generating activities.

As the Collective of Youth Organizations for Solidarity in the Democratic Republic of Congo working together with COHERE we are trying to understand better the situation of refugees in DRC in order to come with various activities that can contribute to their well-being.

Our meeting in the Kenya Division brought together around 20 refugees mainly from Burundi who stay around, and focused on three points: Presentation and knowing each other, presenting our program focusing on effective protection of refugees in DRC, getting feedback and challenges refugees are facing in the city, and what refugees are doing in order to survive.

Presentation

Kulihoshi Musikami Pecos presented himself in details from the tribe, village and countries he has lived and what he has been doing. This was part of our approaches in order to fight against identity stereotypes as many refugees fear to disclose their true identities. Pecos shared with them our observations in which we are concerned about the lack of information about refugees who are hosted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the lack of Forums in which refugee issues are addressed and the absence of refugees in DRC in various Forums at international levels. The absence of refugees in the Media and lack of opportunities to share and connect with other refugees in different countries and advocates in the world.

Like in many other places, refugees in DRC are not organized into groups and associations, so we are proposing them to work hard in order to put in place their own associations. We also presented our desire to empower them about their rights, and work hard to improve their economic activities, and lastly we shared with them our current advocacy towards improving the DRC refugee policy and other reforms.

While the participants appreciated and thanked us as being the very first Congolese Civil Society initiative interested in refugees matters and vowed to work with us, they pointed out the following issues which should be incorporated in our advocacy program.

The lack of humanitarian relief aid: All of them are called urban refugees which means they have to live on their own, however questions remain who decided about that? Where refugees consulted? What happened to the funds from UNHCR Geneva that should be allocated to refugees in DRC? what is the real agenda of the DRC Government towards refugees?

In the discussions issues like house rent, children education, health care, livelihood activities, arbitrary arrests, discrimination, fear of persecution because of one’s identity, oppression from some authorities against vocal refugees, lack of refugee documents, lack of refugee CTD, lack of connections with the world were among issues raised in the meeting.

Reactions

We asked them to select two people who will their focal points working together with us in order to come up with plan and advocacy to address these issues. We encouraged them to get organized in Associations in order to raise up their voices and at the same put in place projects that can address their challenges.

More meetings will be planned in order to work together on various issues that affect them. Our next meetings will with the Somalis and Rwandan refugees among others.

Thanks