As gunfire and explosions echo across the hills of eastern Congo, a quieter sound moves through the neighborhoods of Goma and its surrounding displacement camps: the knock of faith leaders bringing words of peace. Each morning, pastors, priests, Catholic sisters and imams travel through conflict-hit streets and broken communities, carrying Bibles, rosaries and a commitment to reconciliation.
The renewed violence in North and South Kivu — driven by advances of the M23 rebel group, drone strikes and retaliatory shelling — has deepened what humanitarian agencies describe as one of the world's gravest displacement crises. More than 7 million people are internally displaced across the Democratic Republic of Congo.
For evangelist Francis Mbombo, the front line of the conflict runs through homes as much as hills:
«The battlefield is outside, but the next war can begin inside a home. If we do not come to them now, grief quickly becomes anger, and anger becomes violence.»
Pastor Albert Nswadi of Goma International Pentecostal Church now devotes most of his ministry to home visits, prayer circles in camps, and mediation between frightened families. Evangelist Kevin Lupangu, who is also a psychologist, combines pastoral care with emergency mental health response:
«Children wake up screaming at night because they think every loud sound is another drone strike. Many adults no longer sleep deeply.»He described meeting a teenage boy whose father had been killed in shelling and who had begun talking about joining an armed group — «the moment where faith matters most, before grief hardens into hatred.»
For displaced families such as Aline Kavira, a mother of three sheltering in Bulengo camp near Goma, these visits have become one of the few moments of calm in a life defined by uncertainty:
«When they come to pray with us, the children become quiet and sleep without crying. They remind us that even in this suffering, God has not forgotten us.»Each evening, Mbombo knocks on another door and offers the same words: «Peace must begin in this house, so that one day it can return to our country.»