Presentation during a briefing meeting organized by COHERE on the situation of refugees in DRCongo

Presentation to the refugee engagement on the situation of humanitarian crisis in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during a Google meeting organized by COHERE on Monday March 18th, 2025  from 4-5pm.

CAPRIDIS Staff Members attending the briefing meeting yesterday Monday in Uvira which was organized by COHERE through Google Meeting

My entire life has been characterized by forced displacement and this shaped my life, modeled it into a great defender of forced displaced people. I did not choose but at first I was compelled by the situation but later on it became part of me until now.

Born in 1977 I was born in Kaziba Kingdom, just after 9 years there was a family conflict between family members which forced my father to leave our village towards another one where we stayed since 1986. This was not a mere movement but I had to lose the nature, the environment I was used to, my friends, my relatives, my crops in order to start a new life, and this took me years to adapt. In 1994 which was twelve years after in this new place, I had to leave it again for studies in Bukavu, the main city in South Kivu Province. Apart from losing again all the above things I said, I was also confronted to the challenge of the new language because in Bukavu they use Kiswahili and French in town, it also took me years to struggle with the language in order to become functional.

 May be some people do not pay attention on the issues around language which should be inclusive in humanitarian interventions towards forced migrants.

After four (4) years in Bukavu that means in 1998, I joined various activities of the Civil Society and later I became so active to the point that I was easily sent in different missions. At this time were under the control of RCD Goma rebel group backed by Rwanda. In 2000 the rebels started hunting me in order to kill me, and because of this I fled to Uganda where I claimed a refugee status in November 2000.

Now here once again I was a new country, a new system of life where even my little education could not mean much, where you know no one, you ran away with only a small bag containing one trouser and one shirt. What was going on in my head was the uncertainty about my life, the failure to continue with studies, where to sleep and how to eat, how to get some money in order to respond to the basic needs, especially to buy a trouser, a shoe, a shirt, to cut my hair, …..

That is why, psychological support through counselling should be inclusive in the humanitarian package and in most cases these services were not available, we had to survive on the religious teaching especially through various activities where I tried to get involved. There is a necessity to involve so much religious leaders in issues around refugees.   

Basing on my own experience from my very first displacement until when I reached Uganda, I realized that in most cases humanitarian interventions focusing on water, food, shelter, and healthcare are necessary but often incomplete and should incorporate other servicers such as counseling, language teaching, contact building with hosting communities and learning about the areas.

Being urban refugee in Kampala Uganda and being so young I was not viewed as one among the most vulnerable people, I was not given the humanitarian support on ground that those in urban are able to sustain themselves and relief aid should be given to the most vulnerable basing on criteria. Again here we can see how policies and practices in place are a problem to many people, in some cases not because the relief aid is not available but because people put policies and practices in place which are followed like a Bible. You come up with this policy to someone who lost everything even before he/she came to you, and generally there is no much attention on the humanitarian policies and how they affect the people they meant to protect.  How denying me the relief aid in Kampala did contribute to my protection which is the main focus of humanitarian actors? This question still puzzles me up to now.

The questions around Protection need a debate in order to shift and become centered to each specific person, discussions abound the promotion of refugee protection is urgently needed especially on the issue of what is protection according to refugees. Up to now no one knows how the denial of relief aid affected negatively my entire life and my whole development. And yet someone should account for this in terms of justice, yet I was not the only one, thousands of others also suffered severely brutality.

Few years after in Uganda, as a young man I had also dreams about my life which I was pursuing but in the process these dreams had to stop because one day a Congolese Refugee Woman in Kampala who was pregnant and reached the time, she went to seek for assistance but she was denied it and on that very day she delivered from Toilets of InterAid and the child died immediately, I was there and this spark all my head and from this particular I choose to engage in advocacy against both practices and policies and humanitarian interventions. On top of that I was also affected by the recruitment of Congolese young people into armed groups and the denial of education to refugee children in Kampala on ground that their parent chose to stay in town. So I decide to devote my entire life on issues around advocacy about refugee well-being, I realized that I could not afford to offer them services and yet I had experience in advocacy especially in Human Rights Activism.

In 2020 Uganda could not tolerate my activism anymore and that is how I left the country secretly with nothing as the security services were mobilized to kill me, I came back to DRC and I was based in Goma working on refugee issues. As you may know, it is difficult to find narratives about refugees in DRC because actors focusing on this issue are very few and actually they do even exist, but since I came in, at least there is a change in terms of information. With this current war, I had to leave Goma towards Bukavu in South Kivu Province where I stayed for three weeks, then from Bukavu to Uvira, and from Uvira to Bujumbura in Burundi and now I’m back to Uvira where I’m trying to do some few things with CAPRIDIS on refugee issues.

In Burundi I’m also creating awareness about the situation of refugees there as you may know thousands of Congolese have fled to Burundi and the situation may not be the best there, it is the same also like here in Uvira. In terms of advocacy it appears difficult to highlight issues of refugees in both DRC and in Burundi.

Issues about refugees in DRC

Recognition:

Refugees in DRC are not recognized at all levels community, local, provincial, national and international. And the recognition is the fact to accept that they are there, this is not the case in DRC, to grant them refugee documents and to recognize that they are entitled to some acts of solidarity, to be concerned about their problems, to know more about their situation. This is where we invest more.

Refugees in DRC are part of ongoing security problems and wars because of being abandoned over the years, refugees need to be supported and helped in order to contribute to DRC development.

To put in place offices that can offer them services: We need humanitarian actors in the following places working on issues of refugees mainly in North Kivu, South Kivu, Maniema, Tanganyika, Ituri, Tchopo, Gemena, Katanga, Lomami, and Kinshasa these are the places where a big number of refugees are living in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As the situation is now in DRC, we are not yet ready to see independent refugee initiatives which even do not exist in so many places, because of the political situation. What we can do now is to strengthen and encourage civil society organizations to put in place activities focusing on refugees, once refugees are empowered, they will organize themselves and will amplify their voices.

In each place, refugees need the natives to come in, help them, serve as their voices and protection but also as advocate to local leaders and the local population. Refugees need centers where they can group from and start thinking, they need someone they can call in the community when they have problems.

I did not talk about these other needs such as food, shelter, health care , education, documents, among other relief aid because I think my colleagues are likely to talk about it.

Thanks

Kulihoshi Musikami Pecos

Human Rights Defender, Specialist of Refugee Rights in the Great Lakes Region

WhatsApp: +243853191163

Email: cojeskinordkivu@gmail.com