Escaping genocide, they sought refuge in America, only to be met with indifference.

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**GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.** — At Tanganyika Market, customers browse a selection of Central African goods, from fresh fish sourced from Lake Tanganyika to vibrant African dresses and stacks of cassava flour. As two men chat in Swahili by the cash registers, the market buzzes with life.

Yet, despite being a world away from the conflict-ridden plains of central Africa, the Congolese community in this small West Michigan enclave carries the heavy burden of a war raging 7,500 miles away. The ongoing conflict in Congo looms large in their minds, even as they shop for plantains and spices.

“It’s disheartening that the situation in Africa isn’t taken seriously,” says HanGa Ngandu, who works at the store her parents own. While she rings up customers, the war in her homeland persists, often dismissed with a shrug: "Oh, stuff is always happening in Congo," people say.

For refugees from war-torn regions like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, the U.S. focus on crises in places like Gaza and Ukraine feels like neglect. They tell USA TODAY that their struggles are overlooked.

Both Congo and Sudan face dire humanitarian crises, driven in part by global indifference and, in Congo’s case, a brutal struggle for "blood minerals" essential for modern technology like phones and electric cars.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the U.S. is home to around 72,000 Sudanese individuals. The Congolese community, though smaller, is rapidly growing, with over 18,000 refugees resettled in the U.S. in the 2023 fiscal year alone.

“People in Gaza deserve safety and protection. People in Ukraine deserve safety. People in Congo, too—my region, Kivu, everywhere—we deserve safety and protection,” says Dr. Yves Kaduli, a Congolese refugee now residing in Alexandria, Virginia.

The shock of war in Sudan echoes the uncertainty felt during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alaa Suliman, a Sudanese American living in the Bay Area, was on a break from teaching when she received a life-altering call from her mother on April 15, 2023. War had erupted in Khartoum, Sudan's densely populated capital. The conflict, which has since claimed 15,500 lives and caused the world’s largest child displacement crisis, left Suliman’s parents trapped in the city.

“Thousands of miles away, you feel helpless,” says Suliman. “In those early days, it was like the start of the pandemic, when you thought everything might go back to normal in a week or two. But then you realize it’s not going anywhere.”