Angolan refugees return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to build a new life.

In the summer of 2022, Terese, Miche, Roger and Nella returned to their home country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), after living as refugees for five years in Angola.

In the Lovua refugee camp, a group of friends gather around a fire with the owners of the place, Miche Mazela Kusa and Terese Kitembe, who are soon to return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with their two children.

"I fled the conflict, but now peace and security are back, so I'm going home," says Miche, speaking of the ethnic and political conflicts that erupted in the Kasai province in 2017, pushing an estimated 35,000 people to seek refuge in Angola. At first, Miche didn't think that the war would reach Kamako (a town in Kasai where he lived, near the border), but the militias eventually entered his town. Some members of the community were killed and the army itself began to flee. At that point, Miche and his wife knew that they had to leave, so they in turn fled to Angola, leaving everything behind.

Five years later, in August 2022, Miche and Terese are about to return to the DRC as part of a voluntary refugee repatriation operation organized on the Angolan side by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Government of Angola and a number of other partners, with funding from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). The United Nations supports these repatriation operations to help Governments face the influx of refugees and migrants, improve border management, and find durable solutions to the challenges they face in this context. Repatriation operations are one such durable solution and, since the voluntary repatriation of Congolese refugees from Angola restarted in July this year, hundreds of Congolese refugees were able to return home with the help of UNHCR and IOM.

There are still a few weeks left [before we go back home], but I feel like we've been waiting for months," says Terese, whose husband is anxious too: I even have trouble eating, because I had expected that I'd be back in Congo at this point."

Back home, back to work

Miche and Terese have spent the past five years in Angola in the Lovua camp. But they have not been idle. Miche was already a farmer in the DRC. "I am passionate about agriculture," he explains. Here in Angola, he continued to work as a farmer with his wife's help to complement the financial assistance that he received from UNHCR and be able to provide for his family.

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