FORGOTTEN: DRC’S DISPLACED MILLIONS

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) independence, commemorating the end of Belgian colonial rule on 30 June 1960.

Yet, for approximately 7.3 million Congolese, today is just another day of displacement, forcefully driven from their homes due to a three-decade-long foreign-backed resource conflict, fuelled by greedy Western corporations and supported by complicit imperialists who use local proxies. Unfortunately, the world has largely ignored the Congolese people’s suffering.

In December 2023, African Stream's Erick Gavala visited a camp for displaced people in Kanyaruchinya village, Goma, located at the base of the Nyiragongo volcano, to speak with those affected.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that from January to November 2024, the war had displaced over 3 million Congolese, with 96 per cent occurring in the eastern region. Among the 658,000 newly displaced individuals in North and South Kivu provinces, women comprised approximately 380,000, and children under the age of five represented more than 100,000. In addition to the humanitarian crisis and conflict, some women shared experiences of abuse and r*pe.

As the war rages on, the world continues to turn a blind eye to the Congolese people's suffering. One possible reason for the silence from Western media is that affluent states benefit from the instability in the Congo. In January 2025, M23 rebels, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, seized control of vast swaths of the mineral-rich provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, including the provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu. They now oversee the illegal mineral trade through Rwanda, earning about $800,000 each month, which fuels the greed of tech industries at the cost of impoverished Congolese.

Despite the DRC and Rwanda signing a US-brokered and Qatari-hosted peace deal on 27 June, the suffering of displaced Congolese continues, while the root causes of their troubles—exploitation by foreign-backed interests and complicity by the ruling elite—remain unaddressed.