“When from this camp I see ... finalists like me, it makes my heart ache, I wonder when I will finish my studies, the years are going by,” he said.
He is one of the 750,000 young Congolese whose schooling is disrupted by insecurity in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, the UN children's agency (Unicef) estimated in late March.
In the small camp next to an evangelical church outside the provincial capital Goma, Buregeya spends his time leaning against the tin wall of the church or playing cards with school friends also displaced from Kibumba.
Since January 2022, about 2,100 schools in eastern Congo have had to close because of armed conflict, according to Unicef.
The damage could be lasting. Without access to education, children and young people can miss the chance to develop the skills needed to escape poverty and overcome the desperate economic challenges that help fuel conflict in places such as mineral-rich eastern Congo, according to a 2011 UN report on global education and armed conflict.
Buregeya fears time is running out for him.
“My life's dream was to go to university after high school, to look for a job, become a teacher and earn a living,” he said.
Conflict in eastern Congo forces thousands of schools to close
Image: Reuters
Thomas Tumusifu Buregeya wishes he were studying for his final school exams. Instead, he scrapes a living doing odd jobs in a displaced people's camp in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo after a wave of rebel violence upended his life again.
Buregeya fled the town of Kibumba with his family in October amid a renewed offensive by the M23 rebel group — the third time in 15 years he has been forced to escape his home and has not be able to study for a year. He is now 22 and still waiting to complete school.
“When from this camp I see ... finalists like me, it makes my heart ache, I wonder when I will finish my studies, the years are going by,” he said.
He is one of the 750,000 young Congolese whose schooling is disrupted by insecurity in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, the UN children's agency (Unicef) estimated in late March.
In the small camp next to an evangelical church outside the provincial capital Goma, Buregeya spends his time leaning against the tin wall of the church or playing cards with school friends also displaced from Kibumba.
Since January 2022, about 2,100 schools in eastern Congo have had to close because of armed conflict, according to Unicef.
The damage could be lasting. Without access to education, children and young people can miss the chance to develop the skills needed to escape poverty and overcome the desperate economic challenges that help fuel conflict in places such as mineral-rich eastern Congo, according to a 2011 UN report on global education and armed conflict.
Buregeya fears time is running out for him.
“My life's dream was to go to university after high school, to look for a job, become a teacher and earn a living,” he said.
MORE:
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UN says Congo will need $2.25bn to aid uprooted people in rebel-hit east
SA soldier killed in DRC Vusi Mabena 'loved his daughters and his job'
Congo watchdog wants billions of dollars more from China minerals-for-infrastructure deal
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