DRC Institutions Launch Genocide Recognition Petition in Paris

A petition calling for international recognition of the genocides committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been launched in Paris. The FONAREV and CIA-VAR officials then headed to Brussels, insiders report, to conduct a series of high-level briefings with MEPs and Advisors for EPP, ECR and PfE.

The change.org petition which has now amassed over 2,000 signatures was the centrepiece of La Traversée – The Forgotten Genocide of the DRC, held on 29 May 2026 at the Pavillon Vendôme. The event was organised by FONAREV (National Fund for Victim Reparations) and CIA-VAR (Interministerial Commission for Victim Assistance and Reform Support, drawing several hundred guests from political, diplomatic, scientific, cultural and civil society circles.

The petition demands that the international community formally recognise three decades of atrocities in the DRC and invokes the concept of Genocost, a legal term enshrined in Congolese law since December 2022, acknowledging that these atrocities were perpetrated for economic gain through the illegal exploitation of natural resources. Its architects, FONAREV and CIA-VAR argue that international recognition of Genocost is a precondition for reparations, accountability and lasting peace.

The evidence underpinning the petition is extensive. The International Rescue Committee estimates that approximately 10 million people have died as a result of the conflicts, with 5.4 million deaths recorded in the period 1998–2003 alone. The UN Mapping Report (2010) catalogued hundreds of serious incidents between 1993 and 2003, some of which UN investigators concluded may constitute genocide under the 1948 Convention. Six million people remain internally displaced, and mass graves have been documented throughout the DRC, including in Kisangani, Kivu and Ituri.

FONAREV has, to date, identified more than 250,000 victims, primarily in the country’s eastern provinces, and has initiated compensation and legal support processes on their behalf. The illegal extraction of the DRC’s natural resources, the institution maintains, is not incidental to the violence, but instead is its driving logic, and the basis on which a genocide designation must be pursued.

A FONAREV spokesperson described the petition as a collective act of refusal:
“With this event, we want to raise awareness and engage as many actors in the international community as possible to take a stand and support the vital work being carried out by FONAREV and CIA-VAR in the DRC for the recognition of the genocidal crimes perpetrated over the past 30 years. To misname things is to add to the world’s misfortunes. ‘To not name them at all is to deny our humanity’. This quote from Albert Camus must resonate within each of us and remain our compass and we must not compound the harm and to deny a humanity that the crimes themselves sought to erase.”

The FONAREV spokesperson added, “That is why we created La Traversée — The Forgotten Genocide of the DRC.”

To sign the petition, click here.