Don’t Tell Us About Your Integrations: Congo Jails Dozens Of Asylum Seekers From Uganda Over Illegal Entry

Reports we have received suggest that  people who have been arrested “are mostly asylum seekers who have no information of how to start the [process of acquiring] refugee status,” Pecos Kulihoshi, regional coordinator of the Global Refugee Leader’s Forum, said in a statement on Thursday.

The foreign nationals were picked up in military operations in the Mikeno and Mapendo areas of Goma, the capital of the eastern North Kivu province, according to the statement.

Kulihoshi said parts of DR Congo are under a state of emergency as the army is conducting operations to flush out rebels of Uganda’s Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

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Any foreigners found in the conflict regions “are taken to be rebels or their coordinators,” he said.

He said the organization will be following up on the cases but urged all asylum seekers in DR Congo to report to local authorities or an office of the UN Refugee Agency to get themselves registered.