Centering the right of return in conflict resolution: The cases of Palestinians and Congolese Tutsi

Author: Tom Shacklock, MSc

January 27, 2026

A Palestinian key at a Nakba Day demonstration in Berlin, symbolizing the keys many Palestinian Nakba refugees have kept with the hope of returning home one day [Image credit: Montecruz Foto via Wikimedia/Flickr]

On June 27, 2025, the United States (US) brokered a peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This agreement has had little to no effect on the ground in ending the conflict that has devastated eastern DRC throughout 30 years of cyclical violence. Meanwhile, the seemingly constructive role of the US in this context has been juxtaposed by its continued military and diplomatic support for Israel. This support continued during Israel’s destructive war and widely recognized genocide in Gaza, along with its systematic abuses in the West Bank. This support undermines the purported role of the US as a peacemaker. Both the Israel-Palestine conflict and the DRC-Rwanda conflict concern several similar issues, including struggles for belonging and the internationally enshrined right of refugees and exiles to return to their homelands. 

The DRC-Rwanda peace agreement includes, among other measures, commitments by both parties to facilitate the return of refugees and displaced persons to their places of origin. This is an important aspect of this peace agreement, as conflicts in eastern DRC have caused one of the world’s largest displacement crises affecting millions of people (including internally displaced persons) from various communities. Displaced persons have been staying in dire conditions in camps, often with little to no access to food or aid. Additionally, an often overlooked aspect of this displacement crisis is the hindrances to the return of primarily Congolese Rwandophones (groups historically from Rwanda), including Congolese Tutsi and Hutu, who have been residing in refugee camps in neighbouring countries for up to three decades. Addressing this issue has been a key demand of the Tutsi-led, Rwandan-backed “March 23 Movement” rebellion (M23), which has been in conflict with the DRC government since 2021. This rebellion first appeared in 2012 and was considered defeated in 2013. This issue is one of several injustices contributing to the persecution of Congolese Tutsi, which M23 and Rwanda have exploited to launch an insurgency driven by several goals, including control over mining operations.

While the US administration seemed to be taking the issue of refugee return seriously in the DRC, Trump had already made public his widely condemned and unrealistic idea to rebuild the Gaza Strip into a “Gaza Riviera.” Despite indications in one leaked draft plan that any “relocation” of Palestinians would be “voluntary” and “temporary,” this proposed plan compounds existing fears and realities of the expulsion of Palestinians from their land. For decades, Gaza has been home to many Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled from other parts of historic Palestine during what has become known as the “Nakba” (“Catastrophe”) upon the creation of Israel in 1948.* Any further mass displacement of Gazans is seen by many as the next stage of a decades-long dream of Israeli hardliners to fully ethnically cleanse Palestinians—an outcome that recent polling data suggests may now be supported by the majority of Israelis. In this regard, these US-led initiatives mark a critical turning point in the DRC-Rwanda and Israel-Palestine conflicts for populations denied belonging in their homelands.

Opposition to refugee return in both conflicts is informed by context-specific prejudices, divisions, and ideological dimensions rooted in the legacy of colonialism and other historical traumas. Israel’s existence is informed by Zionism, a broad Jewish self-determination movement and ideology encompassing a range of extremist and more liberal variants that respectively reject and support co-existence with Palestinians. In practice, Palestinian rights have been undermined by a zero-sum attitude fostered by the intergenerational trauma created by the Holocaust and centuries of anti-Jewish persecution in Europe that propelled the creation of Israel. The premise that diaspora Jews were returning to their ancestral homeland from which Jewish people were historically expelled was itself central to Israel’s creation. Many Jewish Israeli citizens have expressed fear that a return of Palestinian refugees would upset the Zionist ideal of ensuring that Jewish people constitute a demographic majority in the state of Israel. Fears of the implications of Palestinian refugee return have been accompanied by a narrative denying the existence of Palestinian identity and portrayals of Palestinians as an inherently violent population that threatens Israelis’ security. In the DRC, popular perceptions of Tutsi and Banyamulenge (a Tutsi sub-group) as not “autochthonous” (indigenous) and demonizing conspiracy theories alleging that they are enabling a Rwandan invasion feed into arguments opposing the return of Tutsi refugees. These hateful discourses have informed genocidal rhetoric linked to violence in both contexts. 

Exclusionary policies towards Congolese Tutsi civilians and refugees are linked to the shifting dynamics of discrimination that they have faced since the colonial era, as traditionally nomadic pastoralist communities regarding political rights and land rights. In the 1990s, Rwandophones faced increased hostilities that culminated in local conflict with other communities and the state-orchestrated ethnic cleansing, particularly of Tutsi and Banyamulenge. Many Tutsi and Banyamulenge fighters joined an insurgency led by Rwanda’s new, primarily Tutsi-led government, which was intervening in the Congo (then named “Zaire”) to pursue exiled Rwandan Hutu extremists who had perpetrated the large-scale 1994 genocide against Rwandan Tutsi. The ensuing Congo Wars entailed atrocities against numerous communities. Though Tutsi and Banyamulenge are currently considered citizens according to the DRC’s 2004 post-war nationality law, their nationality is contested in practice, and they face targeted violence from self-proclaimed “indigenous” militias known as “Mai-Mai.” The toxic politics of “indigeneity” or “autochthony,” combined with the inaction of the Congolese government, have stalled progress in facilitating the return of primarily Tutsi refugees historically displaced by violence.

Kigeme camp in southern Rwanda, which has sheltered thousands of Congolese refugees [Image credit: Oxfam East Africa via Wikimedia]

Exclusionary policies and violence can also fuel extremism among marginalized, dispossessed populations. Hamas, a politico-military organization that runs Gaza, has perpetrated terrorist attacks and atrocities against Israelis in the name of resisting Israel’s military occupation and oppression of Palestinians, including its mass killing and abduction of Israelis that triggered the Gaza war and genocide in October 2023. The denial of the right to return is thereby one of several injustices facing Palestinians that Hamas exploits, while the Israeli government has exploited Hamas’s abuses to commit a genocide preceded by years of ideologically driven exclusionary policies and violence against Palestinians. Hamas also ideologically rejects the existence of the state of Israel, reciprocating the zero-sum logic of hardline Zionism. By contrast, M23 does not possess such an eliminationist ideology, despite its brutal violence against civilians. Recent massacres against Congolese Hutu follow a historical pattern of killings of Hutu by Tutsi fighters as revenge or collective punishment for the actions of Hutu extremists in Rwanda and the DRC. During the Rwandan civil war (1990-1994), which culminated in the 1994 genocide, the return of Tutsi refugees expelled in past pogroms was a central demand of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a then primarily Tutsi refugee rebel group that committed massacres against Hutu. In 1996-97, the new RPF-led government and Rwandan-backed insurgency even perpetrated large-scale massacres against Rwandan Hutu refugees who had fled into Zaire alongside exiled genocide perpetrators. However, Rwanda’s ongoing efforts to repatriate remaining Hutu fighters and refugees demonstrate its inclusionary (albeit authoritarian) ideology of inter-ethnic unity. The continued presence of remnants of exiled genocide perpetrators in eastern DRC is cited by Rwanda as a security threat and has further deterred Congolese Tutsi refugees from returning home. 

In neglecting the denial of refugee return in Israel-Palestine and eastern DRC, the international community seems to have viewed this right as less urgent than abuses of other human rights, such as the right to life, as refugee populations can continue to (barely) survive in camps. Yet, the desire to live in one’s homeland can be a deeply existential sentiment for displaced populations, forming a core part of their sense of identity, belonging, and dignity. This feeling is symbolized in Palestinian Nakba survivors who have kept their keys to their homes with the hope of returning one day. Populations made stateless by expulsion, including Palestinians and Congolese Tutsi, often enjoy limited freedom or socioeconomic opportunity in host countries and can remain in limbo in camps for years. Congolese Tutsi and Banyamulenge refugees have even faced restrictions and repression in Rwandan camps, despite the Rwandan government’s claimed solidarity with their community. The potential consequences of harsh refugee camp conditions have been witnessed in Bangladesh, where impoverished Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have been forcibly recruited by the same Myanmar military that committed genocide and ethnic cleansing against them in 2017 following decades of exclusionary hostilities and policies.

All these grievances can become key drivers of conflicts in which fighters from such populations commit abuses of the right to life and other serious human rights violations against other communities. This outcome has been observed in the Central African Republic (CAR) following the 2014 conflict-based ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority by mainly Christian militias. A “self-defense” militia that emerged calling for the return of Fulani pastoralist Muslims (and recently agreed to disarm) has committed human rights abuses and exacerbated hostilities, and Fulani civilians have, in turn, been further targeted in brutal counter-insurgency operations. In these different contexts, traumatic experiences of reciprocal atrocities have fuelled cyclical conflict and reinforced exclusionary hostilities.   

Refugee return is a human right that may redress past ethnic cleansing and form part of efforts to counteract exclusionary politics that could cause future ethnic cleansing or genocide. Yet, it also comes with major challenges, particularly when conflict undermines co-existence in contexts of exclusionary asymmetric conflict, and related grievances, traumas, insecurity, hostilities, and prejudices remain unaddressed. The US-brokered DRC-Rwanda peace deal notably excludes measures promoting conflict-related justice, while Trump’s potential plans for Gaza threaten to further continue the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and deny their right of return. The international community should put pressure on the relevant governments to respect the right of return as part of a strengthened, comprehensive human rights and peacebuilding framework that aims to prevent further conflict, address various grievances, tackle polarizing narratives that justify exclusion and atrocities, and restore the dignity of excluded refugee populations.

*While the term “refugee” is usually applied to people who flee across the national border of their home country, the term “internally displaced person” (IDP) is used for people who remain within their home country. However, some may argue that these categories are not always mutually exclusive, and the boundaries between them can be unclear. This may particularly be the case for Palestinians who were displaced to Gaza during the Nakba and are generally categorized as “refugees,” as the territories from which and to which they fled were all part of their historical homeland before the creation of Israel and the drawing of new internationally recognized borders.

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Glossary

• Asymmetric: Involving actions or parts that are not similar or not balanced, especially because one is much bigger or more powerful than the other. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Atrocity: an extremely cruel, violent, or shocking act. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Autochthonous: Pertaining to autochthons; aboriginal; indigenous. [Source: Collins Online Dictionary]

• Colonialism: The practice by which a powerful country directly controls less powerful countries and uses their resources to increase its own power and wealth; the practice of establishing colonies to extend a state's control over other peoples or territories; the control or governing influence of a nation over a dependent country, territory, or people. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]

• Conspiracy Theory: A belief that an event or situation is the result of a secret plan made by powerful people. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Demonize: To portray (someone or something) as evil or as worthy of contempt or blame. [Source (quoted): Merriam-Webster Dictionary online]

• Discourse: discussion or debate (= formal or political argument), or an example of this; spoken or written discussion.  [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Ethnic cleansing: The forced removal of an ethnic group from a territory [...] Unlike crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes, ethnic cleansing is not recognized as a standalone crime under international law. However, the practice of ethnic cleansing may constitute genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. [Source (quoted): US Holocaust Memorial Museum]

• Exclusionary: Limited to only one group or particular groups of people, in a way that is unfair. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]

• Existential: You use existential to describe fear, anxiety, and other feelings that are caused by thinking about human existence and death. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]

• Genocide: An internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. [Source (quoted): US Holocaust Memorial Museum]

• Grievance: a complaint or a strong feeling that you have been treated unfairly. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• The Holocaust: The systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. [Source (quoted): US Holocaust Memorial Museum]

• Indigenous: Used to refer to, or relating to, the people who originally lived in a place, rather than people who moved there from somewhere else. [Source: Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs): Persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized border. [Source: United Nations]

• International community: A phrase used especially by politicians and in newspapers to describe all or several of the countries in the world, or their governments, considered as a group. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Land rights: There are various specific terms and definitions used for this concept, but ‘land rights’ can generally be considered a subcategory of property rights concerning the right to land [Source: Lisa Murken and Christoph Gornott]. They can include the right to use or control the use of land and can concern the allocation of rights to land [Source: Food And Agriculture Organization].

• Liberal: Relating to or having policies or views advocating individual freedom. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]

• Marginalize: to treat someone or something as if they are not important. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Military occupation: Control and possession of hostile territory that enables an invading nation to establish military government against an enemy or martial law against rebels or insurrectionists in its own territory. [Source (quoted): Merriam-Webster Dictionary online]

• Narrative: A way of presenting or understanding a situation or series of events that reflects and promotes a particular point of view or set of values. [Source (quoted): Merriam-Webster Dictionary online]

• Militia: An organization that operates like an army but whose members are not professional soldiers. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]

• M23 (March 23 Movement): One of over 100 armed groups active in eastern DRC, M23 is a Rwandan-backed rebel group that claims to protect the interests of ethnic Tutsi. It is named after a peace agreement signed with the DRC government on March 23, 2009. The rebellion first appeared in 2012-13, claiming that the abovementioned agreement was not upheld, and fully reemerged in 2021. (Source: Judith Verweijen & Koen Vlassenroot, Egmont Institute)

• Nationalism: Nationalism is the desire for political independence of people who feel they are historically or culturally a separate group within a country. It is often associated with the belief that a particular nation is better than any other nation, and in this case, is often used showing disapproval. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]

• Nomadic: Moving from one place to another rather than living in one place all of the time. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Pastoralist: A person who raises livestock, esp. a nomadic herder. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]

• Persecution: Cruel and unfair treatment of a person or group, especially because of their religious or political beliefs, or their race. [Source (quoted): Collins Online Dictionary]

• Pogrom: A mob attack, either approved or condoned by authorities, against the persons and property of a religious, racial, or national minority. The term is usually applied to attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. [Source (quoted): Britannica]

• Refugee: A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her home because of war, violence, or persecution, often without warning. They are unable to return home unless and until conditions in their native lands are safe for them again. [Source: International Rescue Committee]

• Repatriate: To send or bring someone or something back to the country that person or thing came from. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Right to return: There is no clear consensus on the definition of and basis for the right to return, though this right is considered protected under other rights in international law. Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” [Source (quoted): Universal Declaration of Human Rights]. Human Rights Watch also argues the following: “The right is held not only by those who fled a territory initially but also by their descendants, so long as they have maintained appropriate links with the relevant territory. The right persists even when sovereignty over the territory is contested or has changed hands. If a former home no longer exists or is occupied by an innocent third party, return should be permitted to the vicinity of the former home.” [Source (quoted): Human Rights Watch]

• Trauma: Severe and lasting emotional shock and pain caused by an extremely upsetting experience, or a case of such shock happening. [Source (quoted): Cambridge Dictionary online]

• Zaire: The former name of the DRC from 1971 to 1997.

• Zionism: An international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel. [Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary online]