By Mariama Fofana, American Red Cross of Colorado and Wyoming
Families separated by international crises can turn to the Red Cross and Red Crescent network for help. The three short words “I am alive” may be all that is needed to ease the minds of distraught loved ones half a world away. Working alongside the global Red Cross and Red Crescent network, skilled volunteers from the Red Cross of Colorado, were able to help reconnect Mujinga Tchombela and her mother, 20 years after the Congo War separated them.
Mujinga Tchombela last saw her mother on a Sunday morning in 1998. She was ten years old. Her last memory of her mother is of her peacefully asleep as she Mujinga left for church with her three siblings.
“When we came back from the church, we saw there were military people in our house,” Mujinga said. “When you see something like that, it is hard to come closer because sometimes when they shoot, everybody is going to die. So, we decided to run away. Since then, I never saw my parents.”
Mujinga is from the town of Kalemie in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As the Second Congo War broke out across the country, thousands of Congolese civilians caught between military clashes were obligated to flee their homes. Some were able to leave for neighboring countries, while others were forced to move around different regions of the country looking for safety.
“We were just going. We didn’t know where we were going, but we were just running to find somewhere we could be safe,” Mujinga said. “At some point, we realized we were alone and needed our parents. We looked everywhere, we called, we did whatever we could, but we didn’t find our parents.”
Mujinga and her brothers eventually concluded that their parents did not make it out alive from their encounter with the military. From 1998, they remained in Congo until they finally decided to leave in 2008. The siblings then moved to Zambia, where they lived in a refugee camp until they were granted asylum in the United States in 2011.
Since entering the U.S., Mujinga resumed her search for her parents using Facebook as her primary tool. Although the siblings believed their mother and father were dead, Mujinga wanted certainty. Maybe she could find someone from her hometown who could tell her about her parent’s whereabouts. Whether her searches would lead her to a gravesite or a reunion with them, she simply needed to know where her parents were. With patience and determination, Mujinga continued her research until she came across a profile that brought her hope in 2020.
“I found a lady who used to sell things to my mom,” Mujinga said. “She had a nickname. We used to call her Bimosa. So, I said let me see if it’s really that woman.”
After leaving several messages, she finally received an answer, and to her relief, it was Bimosa
“When I talked to her, she said, ‘I saw your mom,’” Mujinga said with a wide grin. “It was a long time ago. But what your mom told me is that she was going to Kinshasa to look for family.”
The conversation between Bimosa and Mujinga’s mother had occurred ten years prior. While Bimosa did not have her mother’s phone number or more specific information about her whereabouts in Kinshasa, she did give Mujinga hope.
“When I heard that my mom was alive, I thought I have to meet my mom,” Mujinga said. “That’s when I said maybe the Red Cross can help me with that case.”
With the newfound information, Mujinga contacted the Red Cross for assistance. She was then put in contact with the Restoring Family Links (RFL) volunteer lead in the Colorado and Wyoming Region of the Red Cross, Matthew Piscopo. Working with RFL volunteer Ross Exler, Piscopo scheduled an initial interview with Mujinga.
“We always try to ask questions that might give us some information about where her mother might be,” Piscopo said. “If the Red Cross volunteers in Congo go to look for her, where would they start? One question we always ask is what’s her religion, what church would she go to.”
Mujinga remembered the church her mother attended and found several locations in Kinshasa. After her conversation with Piscopo and Exler, she researched the churches and found the Facebook profile of a pastor in one of the locations and contacted him. After several tries, Mujinga received an answer from the pastor, who gave her his phone number. However, when she called, no one answered. Still hopeful, Mujinga gave the number to the RFL volunteers working with her. They also tried contacting the pastor unsuccessfully.
“I tried and tried,” Mujinga said. “Until I called again one day, and he answered my call. I gave him my name and told him I’m looking for this person and gave him my mother’s name. Thank God, she was a Christian in the same church, and he knew my mom.”
After speaking to the pastor, Mujinga was thrilled. She even received a phone number from the woman who could be the mother she had not seen for 23 years. But, nervous that she hadn’t connected with the right women, Mujinga turned to RFL volunteers to verify the information and confirm that it was her mother.
“You’ve been hoping for the last 20 years to be reconnected and you’re scared that if you pick up the phone, maybe it’s the end of that hope,” Exler said. “It is so emotionally charged. People are so scared of disappointment that without someone to be there and be an intermediary, it can be very difficult to pick up the phone and make the call.”
A Red Cross interpreter then called the number and matched the woman’s facts to Mujinga’s and determined that she was, in fact, Mujinga’s mother.
“After the Red Cross did all the miracle things they did,” Mujinga said. “I was able to talk to my mom. She is really my mom. I couldn’t speak, and she couldn’t speak too. We were just crying. She was thinking we all died, and since 1998 until 2020 I thought she was dead too.”
After talking to her mother, Mujinga, unfortunately, found out that her father had passed. However, she discovered that she now has four more siblings. Now a mother to four beautiful kids, Mujinga looks forward to the day she can finally hold her mother again and introduce her to her grandchildren.
As part of the Restoring Family Links program, the American Red Cross provides peace of mind to thousands of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the United States by helping them reconnect with their families abroad. People looking for loved ones can find more information on the Red Cross Restoring Family Links website.