An uncertain future – children caught up in massive fresh displacement in eastern DR Congo

A stone’s throw from the achingly beautiful Lake Kivu, Shasha is a community hesitantly rebuilding itself. In the last two weeks, a district that was almost deserted is coming back to life. An estimated 16,000 people have returned, as a fresh wave of conflict-induced displacement pushes yet another movement of children and families in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

“We're very happy to be back,” said Daniella, 13, after several hours spent playing with others under a UNICEF-supported programme for displaced children in Shasha. “Before your support arrived, we spent our days by the river here with nothing to do, and we didn't have enough people to make us smile.”

But moving at short notice to Shasha from the Mugunga displacement site in the city of Goma has also come at a cost. There’s trauma for children caught up in the escalating violence, and then the sudden shift away from Goma where she was in school.

“Being here without being able to study, we feel very bad. I was already in 7th grade and had to take an exam to get into 8th grade. Dad had financial problems and I don't know if I'll be able to continue my studies.”

Mother of six, Claudine Bahati, has also recently returned. “I fled the conflict in February last year. We took refuge in Kitembo, where we lived for a while. But in January 2025, the war caught up with us again. We fled again, but unfortunately a bomb fell on our home. It injured me and my children, but fortunately we survived.”

Now back in Shasha, and using the free medical services at the health centre, she already fears life will never be like it was before.

“We're going through a very difficult time. Everything we had left behind had been stolen, and we found nothing when we returned. Before, we had businesses, we worked in the fields and thanks to that, we lived well. We were able to support ourselves with our harvests and our activities,” she said.

“But when we came back, we found nothing. Everything had been stolen, our fields had been destroyed, and all the money we had had been spent because of this situation.”

Next to the small health centre, clinical psychologist, Judith Kabuo Siyanzire has been running a ‘listening post’ for the past two weeks, with UNICEF support. She patiently listens to those recently displaced as they share their stories, providing mental health and psychosocial support and helping link children to local services such as family tracing and reunification.

“There is trauma that is definitely there,” she says. “People are not yet stable mentally. We try to share information as mental trauma is not something that is well understood here, so we spread the word. For those who are survivors of sexual violence we help provide counselling and take care of medical costs.”

“It’s a precarious situation for many. People have spent a year in the displacement sites without a livelihood. Emotionally they are drained as well. The schools aren’t yet open. Rebuilding a life after such trauma takes time. But on the positive side, children are finding old friends again in the community, and there’s food available in the fields. But it’s also hard to rebuild when there’s so much uncertainty about the future.”

So far 120 unaccompanied children in the area have been identified in the community, and work is ongoing to trace their families, separated in the conflict and the rush to move. Such children are especially vulnerable to violence and potential recruitment by armed groups.

At the local health centre, they are reopening after more than a year, when the escalating conflict reached the edges of the village.

“We have been through a difficult period,” says head nurse Joachim Kabumba, who reopened two weeks ago with support from UNICEF and their partner the Congolese Red Cross. “Everything had been looted. There were no medicines, no chairs, the doors were opened. We have tried to do what we can. UNICEF provided medicines for us which allows us to provide free treatment for primary care. We used to have 18 beds but we’re currently operating with just four.”

Thanks to UNICEF support they can treat up to 1,000 people with malaria, 50 births and 40 cases of severe cute malnutrition, with more medicine stocks available soon. They have had an influx of cases for malaria, respiratory diseases and diarrhoea. And with ongoing epidemics in the area, they have seen suspected cases of both cholera and mpox. The fridge is broken so for now they have not been able to restart routine vaccination.

Like many returnees, mother Claudine has little to cling to but a hope that one day things will get better.

“My family and I, with my children, simply want to get back to a better life, back to the way we were before. That's really my dearest wish.”