Mother, son reunited after 25 years

HUYE-It was tears of joy as Augustin Murego, 52, finally reunited with his mother he separated from 25 years ago.“I had never imagined meeting my mother ever again,” the father of two said, adding this was an unforgettable moment of his life.He hugged his mother, Costasie Nyirashishi, tightly and for a long time, no one wanted to let go of the other.Murego left his motherland in 1987 to look for greener pastures. As he was planning to return back, the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi broke out and prompted him to remain outside the country-this time as a refugee.He has since lived in ‘deplorable’ conditions in a refugee camp in Uganda, far away from his family, relatives and friends. In 25 years, he had no information about them.“I thought they were all dead,” he narrates.Murego is part of the delegation of nine Rwandan refugees living in Kyaka II camp, Uganda, who are currently in the country under the “Come and See, Go and Tell” programme, an initiative aimed at encouraging refugees to witness the situation firsthand and later go back to brief their colleagues back in the camps.As part of the programme, the refugees visit their families and relatives and tour various development projects across the country.The refugees, who arrived in the country last Sunday afternoon, visited various projects in the districts of Huye (South), Nyagatare, Kayonza and Ngoma (East) and Musanze in the Northern Province.“When I saw my mother, I lost the courage to leave her and only thought of staying here. But I have a family outside there,” said Murego. “I have made a decision. I am going back to bring my family. We have lived in bad conditions in the camp and that is over. It is time to come back to my motherland to start a new life.”He said they were fed a lot of rumours about the country. “For instance, that people here work only for the benefit of those in power. However, I have seen that everyone is busy working towards self-development and that of the country in general,” he said.According to Bernard Placide Ndayambaje, in charge of repatriation in the Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs (MIDIMAR), the programme helps to dispel fears among refugees, mainly because of rumours spread by Genocide fugitives and hardliners, that the country was not peaceful and that refugees are arrested upon repatriation, Ndayambaje added.He noted that since its inception, the program has started bearing fruits, “with a big number of refugees returning on a regular basis while others expressed the willingness to come”.“We are registering, on average, 800 refugees every month,” Ndayambaje said.“The Government has put up mechanisms to facilitate willing refugees to repatriate through a partnership with transport companies,” he said citing Rwanda’s ONATRACOM, Tanzanian TAKWA Agency and RwandAir.Uganda is home to over 16,000 Rwandan refugees, mainly in the camps of Nakivale, Kiryandongo, Kyangwari and Kyaka II all in western Uganda, and Oruchinga in the south.

National

Mother, son reunited after 25 years