World Refugee Day, which takes place every year on 20 June, is a time for reflection. It is commemorated in refugee camps and urban communities around the world, as a way to pay tribute to more than twenty million people who are just like us, except this: in fear of persecution and conflict they have fled their homes and left everything behind. Today Rwanda is hosting over 111,000 of the world’s refugees, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and now Burundi. The Government of Rwanda, through Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs (MIDIMAR), and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which lead the refugee response in Rwanda, organized special events last Saturday marking World Refugee Day in all six camps in the country, as well as with the urban refugees living in Kigali and the new arrivals in the Bugesera reception center.
