Rose Gonsa Minga and her family fled war-torn Congo seeking a better life.  Instead, they were unexpectedly torn apart.

The family left the DRC capital of Kinshasa on a grueling journey of more than 1,000 miles. Rose was pregnant for most of the journey. Once arrived in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, Rose was hospitalized due to complications, remaining there for six months. Unable to care for her two younger children, they stayed with friends.  Her eldest daughter had remained back in the DRC awaiting instructions to rejoin the rest of the family.

John had only been in the United States for nine months when he was approached by Red Cross International Services Regional Specialist Lisa Taibi.

“She said, ‘you have a message.’ I said, ‘are you sure?’ It was not easy to believe,” John says.

John hadn’t seen any of his siblings in almost 20 years. After leaving them to work with small businesses across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), John was eventually forced to flee to Zimbabwe due to the conflict in his native country.

“They were looking for young men to join the militia,” John says. “If they couldn’t find the male, they would find the wife and kids and rape, beat and kill them.”

Thankfully, John’s wife and four children were eventually able to join him at the refugee camp in Zimbabwe. Even after the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) helped the family, which now includes two additional children, resettle in Buffalo, he still had no idea what happened to the rest of his family back home in the DRC.