It is midday Sunday. I take a TVS motorbike and head towards Kiziba refugee camp in Rwankuba sector, Karongi District. The Congolese refugee camp, was set up in early 1996, located fifteen kilometers from Kibuye town. It accommodates over 18,000 refugees, who fled the neighbouring DR Congo due to the constant political stand off and wars that have persisted- displacing many innocent civilians. My visit was to take a moments breath at this place and discover how refugees survive. Immediately you arrive at Kiziba refugee camp, there is a buzz of activity. Many people especially the young have come to collect firewood and water provided by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). A number of children are transporting firewood on wooden bikes. You wonder where they get the knowledge or skill of making these bikes. Next to the firewood is a health centre. You cannot differentiate it from any other hospital in the country. People queue up seeking medication around the health facility. I first wonder where they get money for medication until one man standing besides me says it’s free. “Do you think we pay for the treatment?” he asks. “The government and other partners solved this issue for us. We get free treatment.” The health center operates under the Africa Humanitarian Action and UNHCR in collaboration with the government of Rwanda. Outside the hospital, there are other activities. The camp has churches and people worship God for spiritual restoration and hope whenever they feel despair. The camp also has primary and secondary schools nearby where refugee children study. Despite being in exile, these refugees seem content with the services they get. Ernest Murengerantwari, 78, is a Congolese Kinyarwanda-speaking refugee who has lived in exile for the past 30 years. He is able to give testimony of life as a refugee during his youth and now. He observes that the kind of life one leads in a refugee camp depends on the host country. “I have lived in different refugee camps but life depends on the situation in the country you have moved to. Some times you meet hard life and at the same time a sweet one,” he says. Murengerantwari and his wife fled their motherland in 1996 due to insecurity that left some of their relatives dead. He had earlier lived in many other refugee camps. He says if you are treated well in a camp, life continues despite the fact that you long for your lost properties and beloved ones. “We have lived a valuable life in this country compared to other refugee settlements we lived in. We get food and the security here is tight,” he says. When Murengerantwari and his wife first fled their country to the neighbouring country of Burundi, life became worse as one of their daughters was raped by unknown assailants on her way from fetching water. He says the rapists infected his daughter with HIV virus. “It is depressing to live such a life my friend. May God help you not to meet such a disastrous moment,” Murengerantwari prays. He adds that when he attempted to report some of the suspects to the police, he was threatened with death if he continued to press with the matter. “We kept quiet not to lose our lives. These people would kill us,” he says. These experiences remind me of my exile life. There are a number of countless undesirable experiences that one undergoes. One of the memorable times that I will never forget as a 9–year old refugee, in Uganda, is when my classmates insulted me, saying that I should go back to my country. Alice Nyirakanyana, 14, is a primary five pupil at Kiziba Primary School. She has never been insulted that way at school. “We study well and no one has ever been told such words in this camp. They rather teach us other topics like the dangers of HIV/Aids,” she says. The refugees speak out on the current insecurity in their country Manasseh Rwabwije, 87, is among the elderly members at the camp. He says that DR Congo problems trace from the death of the first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba on January 17 1961. According to Rwabwije, the problem was again fueled in 1965 when the former President Mobutu Sese Seko, assumed power and the country was led by foreigners indirectly. “This is how our country suffered and in my opinion, I think General (Laurent) Nkunda is the only person who can redeem Congo,” he says. Ernestine Mukakabera, says that he looks at Nkunda as God. “Laurent Nkunda is like God to us because the Congolese-Kinyarwanda speaking people are suffering a lot. We are looking forward to him to try and facilitate our return home. Life as a refugee is a life that one cannot wish to live apart from us the cursed Congolese who are forever killed and displaced,” she laments. Ends
