Rwanda
Last Rwandan refugees returned from Tanzania

afrol News, 6 January - With the end of year 2002, also a final conclusion was found to the large number of Rwandans that had languished in Tanzanian refugee camps for almost one decade. Up to 535,000 Rwandans had found a refuge in these camps. Both the Rwandan and the Tanzanian governments are glad this chapter is now closed - as are most ex-refugees.

From a peak of more than half a million in the mid-1990s, the last Rwandan refugees in Tanzania have now returned home, marking the end of one of the most dramatic refugee exoduses in the turbulent history of Central Africa, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reported this week.

UNHCR spokeswoman Ivana Unluova said the final group of 3,200 refugees crossed the border into Rwanda from Tanzania during the last days of 2002. Presently, only about 150 Rwandan remain in the country, not wanting to leave.

The returning refugees were the last of 535,000 Rwandan Hutus who fled in mid-1994, as the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) overran the country. The RPF-invasion put an end to genocidal killings by Hutu extremists that left nearly 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. But it also triggered a large-scale exodus into neighbouring countries of ethnic Hutus fearing retribution.

An estimated 1.3 million Rwandans fled to what was then eastern Zaïre (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC), while more than half a million escaped to Tanzania. In Zaïre, tens of thousands perished in a cholera epidemic which swept huge, makeshift refugee camps near Goma in the summer of 1994. 

Most of the refugees went back to Rwanda from both Zaïre and Tanzania in 1996. However, at the onset of last year, Tanzania still hosted an estimated 24,000 Rwandans, in addition to more than 400,000 from Burundi and Congo Kinshasa (DRC). 

In September, Rwanda, Tanzania and UNHCR reached an agreement to repatriate the remaining Rwandans by the end of the year. "During the final weeks of 2002, UNHCR officials worked around the clock to register those rushing to sign up for return ahead of the 31 December deadline, the UN refugee agency reports. 

A total of 15,000 Rwandan refugees in Tanzanian camps had returned home voluntarily during September and November last year, following invitations from the Rwandan government and clear signals from the Tanzanian government that they were no longer welcome. By Christmas, only a few thousand refugees still remained in the camps.

While all parties to the September deal say the repatriation of the refugees had been totally voluntary, significant pressure was felt to leave the camps. The Kigali regime has been known to slowly improve its human rights records during the last years although rights watchdogs still find many substantial reasons to complain. 

Rwanda is currently preparing to end its transition period, which has been the state of the art since the RPF came to power in 1994. A new constitution and general elections are planned later this year and Kigali has invited all exiled Rwandans to participate in transition to democracy.

Sources: Based on UNHCR and afrol archives 

 

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