Life inside Kiziba refugee camp

KARONGI – Located about 33 kilometres outside Kibuye town, Karongi District in the Western Province, is Kiziba Refugee Camp that is home to over 18,000 Congolese refugees. The refugees arrived in the country 16 years ago after fleeing from in the DRC eastern region of North Kivu. The camp, which covers 27 hectares, was established in 1996 with further influx of refugees in 2006 and 2009. Life at the camp largely mirrors that in other refugee camps elsewhere in the country. Children attend classes, play and joke while grown-ups are often busy carrying out domestic chores. The camp has a primary and secondary school, a health care centre, a market, and clean water. Also straddling the expansive camp is a haircutting salon, small shops, a market, bars, battery charging shops, and a lot of other activities.Young people pursue vocational training in a number of fields, including tailoring, electrical engineering or culinary arts outside the camp.But that is as far as the similarities go. At the outset, the number of children markedly outnumbers that of adults with the majority aged between 4 and 15 years. Sources within the camp told to this reporter that over 3,600 students had enrolled in primary school alone. This figure does exclude those either enrolled or have dropped out. Inactivity in the camp seems to be one of the major challenges affecting the refugees. Speaking about the high birth rate at the camp, Chantal Uwambaje, an employee of the American Refugee Committee (ARC) emphatically says: “The more children you have, the more food rations you get.” The camp manager, Gonzague Karagire, seems to agree with the assertion: “These refugees always say that they own big chunks of land back home. And once you ask them why they cannot wait to produce more children until they return home, they claim that they receive more food.” “The distribution of food is based on how many members a family has,” he adds. Every individual receives 12 kilogrammes of maize, three kilogrammes of beans and 900 grammes of cooking oil every month irrespective of one’s age. This move has prompted some refugees to oppose family planning initiatives, officials here claim. “Family planning has encountered tough resistance in this camp,” Uwambaje observed. Unprotected sex Also apparent is the high number of pregnant women and girls at the camp. The leading cause of this spiralling rate of pregnancies among teenage girls is poverty. Many of the teenagers say that they usually engage in unprotected sex as they sometimes get paid for the ‘service’. “How can you force a man to use a condom when he offers to give you money. Otherwise, he will go away as he may not enjoy sex and hence risk missing out on an income,” said one of the teenage girls. Claire Uwamahoro, 15, a Senior Two student at College Amahoro, a secondary school inside the camp, observes that many of her colleagues have had unplanned pregnancies in the process.“I estimate the number of my friends who are pregnant or have a child to be about 80 percent,” she alludes. “Many of them have been impregnated by people from outside the camp because they are the ones who have money,” opines Uwamahoro’s friend, Esperance Uwase. While on visit to the camp last week, the Minister of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs, Gen, Marcel Gatsinzi, expressed dismay over the high incidences of pregnancies among the teenagers. The minister urged them to shun unprotected sex, calling on them to use condoms if they cannot abstain from sex. “I have been told that HIV prevalence here is high and that a lot of young girls are being impregnated all the time. I am very worried,” the minister lamented. “I request you to always use condoms if you have to engage in sex. Do not put your lives at risk.” Efforts to get statistics on the HIV prevalence rate among refugees were futile, but The New Times established that refugees are regularly provided with condoms.Another cause for unwanted teenage pregnancies in this camp is rape. According to Uwambaje, who is in charge of the fight against Gender Based Violence (GBV) at ARC, a number of young girls and women had been victims of rape and sexual abuse.”“In the past, the victims used to hide it. But we have since intensified campaigns to sensitise them to report such cases and are since registering a positive change.” Some refugees, however, bemoan that culprits in some cases are not pursued.

National

Life inside Kiziba refugee camp