“Stop creating divisions between us through your targeting” Community views on aid and social cohesion in eastern DRC Bulletin | Mweso and Minova | December 2025 [EN/FR]

Summary

This qualitative study conducted in Mweso city and Minova city explores the tensions between host communities, displaced persons and returnees, as well as the local mechanisms that support or undermine social cohesion. In Mweso, the most prominent tensions stem from economic pressure, land conflicts and a strong distrust of aid, perceived as unequal or opaque. In Minova, tensions are more evident in everyday discrimination, the exhaustion of host families, and frustration with humanitarian interventions that are perceived as irregular or poorly explained. In both areas, feelings of being ”abandoned” or unheard fuel tensions, while repeated displacement complicates there building of relationships.