In July 2024, the United Nations reported that in just one week, over 150,000 people were displaced due to an escalation of violence in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. This was the result of ongoing fighting led, in part, by the M23 rebels. One month prior, an investigation commissioned by the UN Security Council revealed that the DRC’s neighbor, Rwanda, has actively backed this armed group, where its military – the Rwanda Defence Force – is identified as having ‘de facto’ control over M23.
For many decades, the DRC has regretfully become known as a global forced displacement hotspot. After Syria and Sudan, it has the third highest level of internal displacement from conflict at 7.3 million, with an additional 1 million as refugees or asylum seekers in other African countries.
Over 82,000 Congolese refugees are in Rwanda, with many there for nearly three decades. The vast majority (88%) inhabit one of five camps located in rural areas, with the remainder in urban areas or transit centres. As is rather common, towns and villages have seen significant growth around these camps, largely due to the microeconomies that emerge through and from the camp’s infusion of finance, goods, services, and labour. In Rwanda, studies have shown that host communities have largely benefitted from nearby camps, leading to a diversification of economic activities and improved schooling outcomes. Some Congolese refugees envision a future in which the Rwandan government, or other organizations and institutions, provide land for refugees and landless Rwandans to work together, tackling food scarcity and building peace.
Rwandan reconciliation as a model for host-refugee relations
The proximity of camps to Rwandan settlements has led to the exchange of ideas and experiences, where Congolese refugees have become intimately familiar with Rwanda’s journey towards reconciliation following its 1994 genocide. The human toll and geographic scale of violence, along with the limited capacity of the justice system to lead trials for perpetrators led to the creation of gacaca courts, a pre-colonial and forum-based community court able to administer community-level justice. While there remain grievances on how justice was administered during these trials, Rwanda has been relatively stable since 1994..
This is something Congolese refugees witnessed firsthand, albeit through the spatial intermediary of camp life. And as ethnographic research revealed, Congolese who themselves sought refuge from interethnic strife considered this as strong evidence of the resilience of the Rwandan people and their commitment to peaceful relations between each other. As such, when imagining what their future in Rwanda would look like, they considered this reconciliation model as something that could be replicated to mediate the relationship between them and their Rwandan hosts. This would be a future where Rwandan citizens and Congolese refugees work together to achieve common goals.
Farming for peace and food security
Peace is not simply the absence of conflict. It also includes its material outcomes and a certain sense of existential satisfaction. As J.B., a Congolese woman from Maisisi, put it, “Returning to land means returning to a time of peace and community before the conflict. Because of what land can give us, it also means peace for our bodies … Peace is not just people getting along.”
Many Congolese refugees currently living in Rwanda have rural origins and agrarian know-how. They often discuss using their agricultural knowledge to improve food security due to their regular concerns about accessing food. “The first thing we need is food – nutritious food for a good diet … That is the future. By cultivating we can have two things at once: we can work and we can eat,” explained R.M., 22. Within the context of a focus group setting, community leaders outlined a future where the government would provide land for currently landless Rwandans and refugees to work together. Tying social cohesion to Rwandan reconciliation, a Congolese man originally from Rutshuru explained “…we need to work with Rwandans … we can’t start a project that excludes them. They’ve been generous. I’ve worked with them for some years and they are good people. What happened here in Rwanda, it was horrible. But they found reconciliation and now everyone works together.”
A pragmatic approach to durable solutions
UNHCR widely advocates for its three solutions to situations of forced displacement. However, the number of resettled Congolese refugees has remained low. As for voluntary repatriation, such a movement will depend on the ceasing of hostilities in eastern DRC. While Angola announced in late July that Rwanda and the DRC had effectively reached a ceasefire agreement, other such ceasefires have occurred with little measurable impact towards sustainable conflict termination in this region.
A pragmatic approach recognizes the above as unfortunate realities, focusing its energies on the third solution: local integration. Rwanda has shown a commitment towards environmental peacebuilding approaches, facilitating the building of social cohesion between Rwandans and refugees through agricultural work, namely through its Misizi and Mushishito agricultural projects. These projects can be upscaled, and as testified above by Congolese refugees inhabiting Mahama camp, there is great willpower and expertise amongst them to work alongside their Rwandan neighbors.
Nicolas Parent
Nicolas Parent is a Part-Time Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, and Policy Officer at Cooperation Canada. His research has focused on the cultural geographies of forced migration, leading investigations in Canada, the Balkans, Perú, Rwanda, and Türkiye. Nicolas holds a PhD in Geography from McGill University and MSc in Risk, Crisis, and Disaster Management from the University of Leicester. He has held appointments at the Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa, University of Rwanda, and Universidad del Pacífico.
