The provincial coordination of civil society in North Kivu published, on Saturday July 1 in Goma, a declaration entitled: “No to the tripartite on Congolese refugees without the participation of the representatives of the people” .
In this declaration, this structure says that it does not give a tripartite without the representatives of the people at the base, in this case the customary chiefs and the representatives of civil society.
It is the latter who know who is a Congolese refugee and who is not, she says in this statement.
John Banayene, president of this civic organization, warns that ignoring this aspect could negatively impact the process of identifying and repatriating these people to the country:
“The success of a process of repatriation and reintegration of refugees to their country of origin depends on community acceptance, in particular knowledge of the process by the host communities”.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), approximately 80,000 Congolese are refugees in Rwanda.
These people would have left North Kivu for about ten years, fleeing the various security events.
However, at least 250,000 Rwandan refugees are staying in the DRC, most of them in North and South Kivu.
Kigali and Kinshasa had pledged to initiate a constructive dialogue in order to create favorable conditions for the sustainable return of Congolese and Rwandan refugees to their respective countries.
The delegations of two countries as well as the UNHCR met for this purpose last Monday, May 15 in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss the arrangements for this repatriation.
Source: Radio Okapi
