My research is on regionalism among Congolese migrants of South Africa with the focus on the tensions between Baswahili (Kivu inhabitants) and Bato ya mangala (Kinshasa inhabitants) in the city of Cape Town. The two groups incarnate the geopolitical East and West of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), respectively. I locate the tensions between these two regional groups in Cape Town in the DRC’s politics as well as that of the host country, South Africa. In the DRC, the tensions between Baswahili and Bato ya mangala are rooted in the identity politics and discourse of the post-Mobutu era, mainly that which emerged from the major events that have shaped the dynamics of the DRC’s crisis since the late 1990s. In South Africa, I link these tensions to Cape Town as a unique host city for Congolese, and the post-apartheid migration politics, more specifically the ones which regulate refugees and asylum seekers in general and Congolese in particular. My main argument centres on the impact of the regionalisation of the DRC crisis in how different Congolese ethno-regional groups are handled in their application for migrant status in South Africa. Such practice, which favours eastern Congolese as “real” refugees while rejecting western Congolese as “economic migrants”, plays a role in regional tensions among Congolese in Cape Town. This process, I contend, divides Congolese migrants into two socioeconomic classes shaped largely by their home regional identities and has provided fertile ground for the politicisation of Congolese diaspora and a transnationalism shaped by regionalism. The research contributes to the field of migration and diasporic identity politics, by focusing on regionalism. Methodologically, this research is inspired by social historians and oral historians and their use of ethnographical tools such as interviews and participant observation.