Hundreds of people in Kicukiro District yesterday flooded various venues for national Identity Card photography as the exercise kicked off in Kicukiro District, Kigali City.

The process takes four days in each district with each sector having at least two photography sites.

It started with Nyarugenge District on Monday and will cover the whole country on a district-by-district arrangement.

A survey around the district yesterday showed that Kicukiro residents turned up in large numbers at all photography venues compared to their counterparts in Nyarugenge District where most people had to show up on the last day (Thursday).

By 11 a. m yesterday, there were already long queues at Nyarugunga, Intwari and Rwimbogo photography sites.

Officials said some photographers had to return to Nyarugenge yesterday to take photos of the people that could not be catered for because most of the residents there only waited until the eleventh-hour.

Photographers at Kimisagara, Nyakabanda, Mahoro and Rugenge sites in Nyarugenge were on Thursday overwhelmed by the number of people that turned up on the last day. The last-minute surge in Nyarugenge forced officials to create an extra photography site at Muhima primary school but this was itself not enough to cover all the people within the specified time.

In Kicukiro however residents seem to have learnt a lesson from Nyarugenge.

Alphonsine Murebwayire, the Executive Secretary of Nyarugunga Sector, said that residents had turned up in large numbers at all the three sites in the sector.

"We decided to allocate two days to each cell for the exercise in Nyarugunga Sector to enable residents waste no time during the four days given to us," Murebwayire said.

She explained that ten cameras had been allocated to each site to enable the exercise to go on fast.

Pascal Nyamurinda, the coordinator of the national identity card project, said yesterday that there are about 20 sites in all ten sectors that comprise Kicukiro District.

After Kicukiro, the exercise will be extended to Gasabo District, after which officials will then take it upcountry.

On the agenda, the Southern Province will come next after Kigali, followed by the Western Province, Northern Province and then the Eastern Province.

The photography exercise comes after Rwandans last year registered for new electronic national IDs.

A total of 9,043,580 people registered for the national Identity Cards, and each person will have to pay Frw500 to get an ordinary ID.

Ends