EASTERN PROVINCE

BUGESERA - The Rwanda Red Cross is constructing 90 houses worth 185,200 Euros [approximately FRW135 million] for Rwandese returnees living in Nemba and Rutete resettlement camps.

"We have embarked on a three-month construction exercise for 90 houses. Our target is to have the houses ready before heavy rains begin later this year” said Karl Seibent a Red Cross official.

The donation is the latest in a series of efforts by different aid and humanitarian organizations in trying to bring hope to 388 families that were recently evicted from Tanzania. Most of them are still living in temporary shelters made of tarpaulin tents.

The returnees are also a source of initial labor for the construction of their houses under the recently initiated World Food Programme, ‘food for work arrangement’. Under this arrangement, selected locals are employed and given food rations in return.

By press time, excited residents had divided into groups, making bricks while others digging house foundations. 

"We look forward to good shelter; we have also put a lot of efforts to speed up the work to avoid rain interruptions. We hope to have better roofed homes” said Alphonse Munyangaza one of the returnees.

Munyangaza said the "work for food” programme has helped many families especially those that arrived late at the camps and had not cultivated crops on their allocated plots of land.

Their only problem, he said is shortage of land which limits extensive cultivation and the possibility of livestock keeping. 

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