About 70km from Kayonza town, on the boundaries of Akagera National Park, is Ndego sector. Before 1994, it was uninhabited but today it is home to 20,000 people.

Ndego used to be part of the national park, but after the liberation, returnees, mostly from Uganda and Tanzania, came with their herds of cattle that needed pasture.

They invaded the park close to many water bodies such as lakes Ihema, Nasho, Rwakibare, Kagese, and River Akagera.

Today, farming, livestock and fishing are their major sources of livelihood.

"After the Genocide, due to the fact that people were returning home from decades of refuge in Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and DR Congo, the country had to find them where to stay,” says the Executive Secretary of the sector, Leon Karuranga.

"There were also other people who lived near the park who had no land so they were also given where to carry out their farming activities.

But not very long, an animal-human conflict erupted and the government had to do something.

"People started living there since 1997, but at the time, they were living with wild animals; buffalos, elephants and others were wandering freely in the neighbourhoods,” he said.

The animals would kill people, and destroy their plantations, the relief eventually came when an electric boundary fence was erected in the 2010s, he said.

Today, Ndego is a shadow of old itself. It has 11 cooperatives, five primary and two schools as well as a health centre.

It also has market that opens on Thursdays which allows business between its residents and "Banyambo,” a tribe in Tanzania, but  plans to build a permanent structure very soon.

"For the Tanzanians, Ndego is the nearest market for them than their side,” explained Karuranga.

Theogene Kimonyo, 53, resident in Kabusunzu village, Isangano cell, previously used to live in the nearby Nasho plains but his ancestors had been living in Ndego before the national park was created in the 1930s. It is a very fertile land, he said, but it easily gets affected by sun.

As a solution, Kimonyo bought irrigation equipment getting from water from nearby lakes.

And due to the high temperature, the crops grow quickly; "in 75 days, beans are ready to harvest, and in 90 days we harvest maize and sweet potatoes,” explained Kimonyo.

Now piped water and is what they lack in the area. In the meantime, they use solar energy but have means to purify the waters nearby.

The district promised that electricity will have reached most parts of the sector by the end of the year, according to the sector official, adding that a partner will also bring water facility soon.

"We wish that one day President Kagame will come to visit us and see how Ndego people have rebuilt themselves today,” said Kimonyo.

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