Pascasie was woken at 2 A.M. by gunfire.
“We fled into the bush and took nothing with us,” says Pascasie, 56, a farmer and mother of several children from Kavumu, in Masisi territory, North Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was a night in January 2025, when fighting broke out between the Congolese army and M23 fighters near her village.
Her family walked for a week to reach Masisi centre. They found two quiet days there. Then the violence arrived, and they were on the road again, this time to Bulengo camp in Goma.
Pascasie lived in the camp for several months. “We hardly ate anything,” she says. “We lived in a small tarpaulin shelter. Sometimes I gave my place to the children and stayed outside with other women, because there wasn’t enough space.”
Eventually she decided to go home. But the village she returned to had been looted.
“Everything was gone. We had no resources at all, and we were living in a small makeshift shelter. We didn’t know where to begin.”
Cash to start again
In June 2026, Pascasie was one of 1,120 households in the Mweso area chosen to receive help from DanChurchAid (DCA) because they were among the most in need. She received $150 in cash (about 336,000 Congolese francs), which she can spend on whatever her family needs most.
She already has a plan.
“This will let me buy food, cooking pots and clothes, and put my children back in school next year,” she says.
“With what is left, I will buy two young goats and start raising animals.”
The goats will give Pascasie a way to earn her own income, and the first chance in a long time to plan ahead.
“When we fled that night, I thought I had lost everything,” she says. “Today, I am finally beginning to believe that a new start is possible.”
Why this help matters
North Kivu is one of the provinces hardest hit by armed conflict in eastern DRC. Repeated fighting and mass displacement have left thousands of families without homes or income, and many face serious risks to their safety.
DCA’s emergency project, funded by the DR Congo Humanitarian Fund, is helping the most vulnerable people affected by the conflict in Masisi and Lubero territories.
Pascasie hopes the help will reach more people. “I wish other families could also receive this aid, so they can smile again, hope for a better tomorrow, and one day live in lasting peace.”
