Below is the unedited version of the series I recently completed for www.en.igihe.com upon Congolese refugees living in the Gicumbi refugee in Rwanda.
Four Truths and a Lie: How Congolese Refugees Lost Hope
The Refugee’s Keepers
The net created over the past century to catch refugees from their plight has not been one of simple fabric. Similar to the many conflicts from which they seek asylum, care for refugees has never been an obvious formula in which the competition for a monopoly will probably never occur. The various national and international actors carefully balancing and dividing the every day needs of this population in precarious situations and countries not their own, is one of a poor mother attempting to feed her hungry children, and more often than not, requires choosing between a lesser of two evils.
Rwanda’s largest refugee camp for asylum seekers is the Gihembe Camp located in the northern district of Gicumbi. Home to currently over 20,000 refugees, the camp began with 14,000 residents in January of 1997 when it first opened its doors to the Congolese. The majority of residents escaped from the eastern province of DRC in ’97 and have been here ever since.
Currently, the UNHCR works with six implementing partners to care for the population specifically in Gihembe: ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency), AHA (African Humanitarian Action), JRS (Jesuit Relief Services), AVSI (The Association of Volunteers in International Service), ARC (American Refugee Committee), MIDIMAR (Ministry of Disaster Relief and Management and operational partner WFP (World Food Program). Each particular partner has their own task they address however, the UNHCR and MIDIMAR work together to oversee each partner in their task.
ARC holds the highest number of staff in the camp with a staff of 71 working in Gihembe to provide water, sanitation, shelter, health, and nutritional services.
Although WFP is in charge of providing food, AHA is in charge of perhaps the most important tasks in Gihembe: Distribution of Food, Firewood and Non Food Items, yet the partner only has three staff working on the project with a WFP representative only on site for food delivery.
JRS comes in third place, in charge of education in the camp, but once again with only a staff of 8 working in the camps
Finally funded by operational partner UNICEF, AVSI focuses on child protection in the camps.
The only national partner, MIDIMAR, is charged with the direct management of the camp and representation of the government and security and only has one representative in the camp.
What adds another layer to this structure is the creation of refugee committees, which are groups of residents who represent the population to partners in specific areas. In Gihembe six committees currently exist Executive, Women, Youth, Health, Distribution, Security, Parents and Sports.
With these committee’s in place, the refugees have agency to present their particular needs in a cohesive way, making them more likely to be addressed.
The structure itself seems the best under the given circumstances, but dangerously depends on the two main camp representatives from UNHCR and MIDIMAR to report back on any major short falls. The clear understaffing present for all partners also hits at the weak point of this structure, which depends greatly on the reporting of those working on the ground in the camp.
Understaffing and underfunding, especially in Gihembe means a problem could take months to fix instead of weeks as partners are spread thin attempting to allocate the same resources to a rapidly growing population.
“Our Headquarters in Geneva are continuing to appeal for further funds,” UNHCR External Relations Officer Anouck Bronee told us.
As aid organizations across the board struggle with internal cuts, pointing the traditional finger of blame becomes close to impossible in Gihembe.
The majority of staff arrive at 7 am or earlier, stuffed tightly in the few vehicles shared by all partners to reach the camp’s odd location atop a hill and leave at 5pm or later depending on their work. After a week of working beside them, it is difficult to say these workers could be doing more, or just caring more.
The medical staff in particular is meticulous, yet caring in the providing what they can for their patients. With a regular staff of 30 nurses and a single doctor, the staff manages the health center with surprising capacity to care for over 20,000 residents. Currently implementing a vaccine program for the thousands of children in the camp, they are on average vaccinating a couple thousand children per day.
Thus, uncovering the simple good guy bad guy formula does not exist in the refugee situation at Gihembe because although it would be easy to blame authority, the problem has never been that simple. However, if anything is for sure, it is that many questions remain unanswered as resident’s accounts differ from the “facts,” and in these gaps, perhaps we may uncover solutions.
Stairway to Nowhere
Salama Innocent is a young Congolese boy at the careful age of 15. Born in the Gihembe camp he is lucky to have grown into a strong healthy teen, currently living with three other children and his mother. His family fled from the Congo and arrived here sixteen years ago, and his general daily activities consist of a slight chance of eating something, and fetching water and firewood.
For a normal person, these activities may consume a mere few hours, but as Salama explains to us this logic cannot apply here in Gihembe. Salama stayed in school until secondary two, not completing the available education in the camp now ceasing at secondary three.
When asked why, he laughed at our naïveté. “ What is the point?” he smirked, “ After secondary three we have to pay our own way, and to us, this means the end of our education.”
The Rwandan system contains six levels within its secondary school education, only three levels are funded in Gihembe. For most young refugees this leaves them in an educational, and life, limbo.
Why don’t you just get a job, we ask, something small? Salama is well-versed in this dialogue, and sighs.
“You don’t think we have tried this? We can’t get jobs outside of the camp. There is discrimination outside of here and this makes our situation worse.”
Young Congolese girls returning from the secondary school, walk by us staring with wide-eyed curiosity. Giggling shyily, Mahoro Solange, also age 15, admits she remained at the Ecole Secondaire De Gihembe (The Secondary School of Gihembe) through secondary three and had just finished taking her final exam that day.
Currently living in a house of four other children under the care of her parents, for Solange hoping for more than one meal a day is almost as ideal as hoping for a future. “We just try not to think about it when we are at school because we know no on else has eaten either,” she whispered looking at her feet.
Despite, being provided adequate food rations every month via WFP, it seems a shortage of food is still ever present among refugees. Moreover, UNCHR fact sheet for Gihembe shows only a severe malnutrition prevalence of 0.37%, which questions whether or not this shortage exists in reality.
“If I don’t find a sponsor after this, I will drop out,” she explained, “ But really, I would like to become a doctor one day.”
It is rare that more than a handful of Gihembe’s over 700 secondary students will find sponsorship, let alone all of them, and because of this education has lost its motivation.
“You know we work hard as students, just like any other student in Rwanda, and also under even worse circumstances. The government should at least help us advance in our education, if not, at least use an English curriculum,” she explained.
Rwanda has recently switched to an English curriculum, but this has left many secondary school students in a limbo since their prior education had entirely been in French.
Waving her finger towards a rare metal gate, she told us, “Over there is a lucky one, but she is crippled.”
Jean Mukarugira is technically a lucky one as a 20 year-old girl who was able to continue her education. But as the refugee’s have come to believe here, few good things come without a price.
Polio has taken her right leg since she was a child. Without the privilege of a vaccine this common camp ailment is one that garners little pity. For a student like Jean, she tries to show how little she needs it.
Jean has just completed secondary five with a focus in accounting and has lived alone for three years now. Brought to the camp as an orphan, her relatives left her to fend for herself once her polio became a burden. “ I hope I can study until my Bachelors,” she tells us.
“For the secondary students, survival is more important than their education, so many choose to drop out. Especially now since they stopped education at secondary three, how can they be motivated to stay when their siblings are hungry at home?” she asked us.
Needless to say, we did not have an answer.
Hope School. The name is a little more than ironic when understanding the reality this school is facing. It was born of an effort by refugee parents to find a way for their children to complete their schooling after the secondary school program was cut after its third year.
In 2008, the Jesuit Relief Services announced it would cease funding for secondary four, five and six leaving many young adolescents in an education limbo. Other partners aiding in serving this population had received cuts themselves, and could not aid in preventing this cessation
A recent report from the UNHCR Rwanda stated, “The main educational challenges include the inability for UNHCR to fund or sponsor a number of deserving students for post-secondary education, and the lack of school infrastructures to comply with the 9 years of basic education.”
Speaking to Solange’s complaint the report points out, “Also, the change in the national language of instruction from French to English by the Rwandan Government necessitates additional training for teachers and students.”
“As regards Secondary Education, only between 25 and 35 % of the camp-based refugee youths have access to secondary education. In this context, refugee girls do not represent more than 20% of the overall student body in secondary schools,” the report concluded.
Fidele Ndagijimana the schools founder and a refugee himself told us in an interview, “Seeing this issue, we as refugees attempted to resolve this significant gap in education. That is when we began to teach students ourselves, based on whatever resources we had.”
The school was opened on January 19th of 2009, but its still struggles to obtain official recognition for its students, and therefore motivate them to stay. It is the only and first, major initiative taken by refugees in the camp to provide services for themselves.
“We are not able to provide the basic materials that are required by an official school, such as numerous rooms,” Fidele lamented, “ But what is necessary really is the government’s support in helping us get a registration number as an official school.”
A committee of refugees supports the school and organizes the collection of Rwf. 70 from each family in the camp. This is barely amounts to 300,000 annually. Seeing the school’s struggle, the UNHCR encouraged the initiative by raising 130,000 Rwf. for them during this years ‘World Refugee Day , but even this does not come close to what they need.
“Sometimes I worry about them, if they will ever be able complete their schooling or leave this camp,” Fidele confides to me quietly as he stares at the mud-caked walls.
Two students current students of the Hope School, Mahoro Shantari (5.6) and Nshimiye Ndahiriwe (5.4) are trying not to give up the struggle, but are simply struggling to hold on to their future.
Mahoro lives in a home with eight other children and now that she is nearing her final year in secondary school she will attempt to find a local school that will allow her to take national exams there. Learn and studying what she can at the Hope School can only take her so far without its official recognition, and finding a local school to let her take the exams for free, is unlikely.
In a recent interview with Director of Refugee Affairs, Jean-Claude Rwahama ,was unaware of their struggle to become recognized and said perhaps this was something the Ministry of Education to work on. He agreed that , “ Human beings must have the right to education as human beings.” However, not much initiative seemed to be taken by MIDIMAR or MINED to help the school in their struggle.
For the moment, it seems no solution lies in the near future for these students and as they lose motivation, many lose sight of their own hopes and dreams. Graduating in to no where most turn to finding the only means of survival they can access.
For young girls, this is often maid services and prostitution, and sometimes one that may turn into the other. For young boys, the options are more diverse, ranging from construction to drug deals to odd jobs to house boys, but even they are not protected from assault.
Despite this, Fidele tries desperately to hold on to the slight glint left in his aging eyes. He, himself, is a meager twenty three years of age, but this is easy to forget.
“My students I tell them, even if we are stuck in a difficult life, we need to find the strength to get through it ourselves. I want them to know this is not the end of life.”
Food Verses Water
Trotting out of the health center to head into the residences, we almost bumped straight into a one-legged man digging soil into water.
He hopped from one side of the pile to the other, efficiently uncovering more dry dirt to create this make shift cement. The balancing act had been mastered over the 50 years that he had lived with polio.
Emmanuel Byanze has been in the camp for twelve years now, and squinted through his old eyes at the now blazing sun, he tells us he has five kids and a wife.
“Not bad for a lame man, eh? ” he tells us baring his missing teeth into a grin.
All his children are in school, and as the man, he tried to bring what little he can home. Struggling for odd jobs here and there, today he considers himself lucky.
He was being paid 400 Rwf. for digging dirt the entire day.
Currently, residents are provided 7 kilograms of maize per month per person; it used to be 10. According the UNHCR’s June 2011 Fact Sheet for Gihembe although 2,100 Kcal/p/day was the agreed upon ration, only 1,997 Kcal was able to be provided. Any other food needs, such as vegetables or fruits must be bought outside of the camp, by selling the little food they receive.
The food shortage was caused by the drought affecting the horn of Africa, where WFP obtains its food supply. Fortunately, beginning mid-august WFP will be restoring food supply back to normal levels, with an addition bonus of the 4 kilograms lost in the past month
A further complaint explained in hush tones by camp leaders was the practice of determining the size of your family in allocating food rations.
“If you have more than three people in your family, they sometimes question whether or not someone is your child claiming they have different skin tones. Then they only provide you with food for three instead of four,” Zone leaders informed us.
The frustration lying on the otherside of food distribution however, tells a different story. Refugees are sometimes found bringing neighbors children with them when it comes time for food allocation, in a desperate attempts to obtain more food for their own family.
However, this practice ultimately takes away from the overall food supply for refugees and miscalculates the total numbers living in the camp.
For many residents the food they receive is unlikely to reach the table, due to a recent shortage of water and lack of firewood.
“Since May we have stopped depending on water or firewood,” Ferediana Muhundekazi, 60, informed us.
As a woman strolls by with her familiarly empty water jug, she tells us, “ I will return probably after four and half hours after I have fetched some from the nearest foothill.”
The firewood shortage has occurred for two months, due to an increase in prices by the local provider. Fortunately, UNHCR is aware of the issue and is working to restore firewood provisions in the near future.
Corretta Nyirandabaruto of Zone 7 is 42 years old with 8 children and a husband to support, and not exactly shy. “My regular day consists of waking up at 5 to find work for sometimes as little as 150 Rwf. for the day and return at 5pm to buy food with this money. But then even after I buy food, I find there is not water to cook it,” she tells us.
“Even the way they supply food has become irregular. Just yesterday they gave our whole family only 3 kilograms of beans to last the entire month. From this we even have deducted some to sell to buy water and firewood.”
“The UNHCR minimum standards are 20 liters per person per day. This standard is reached in 2 of the 3 camps, but recently in Gihembe camp, refugees have not been receiving this amount. UNHCR and its Partners are doing everything they can do redress the problem,” UNHCR External Relations Officer Anouck Bronee told us.
According the UNHCR’s June 2011 Fact Sheet for Gihembe, the current amount received on average is now 10 liters/person/day. EWSA, Rwanda’s national power and water distribution company is unable to provide adequate water supplies to the camp, leaving UNHCR with no option other than to truck water from over 30 kilometers away. Despite there, efforts however, a durable situation has yet to determined.
With this shortage of water, it is known that overcrowded sanitation will be taking a hit, leaving many more vulnerable to sanitation related diseases such as cholera. With currently only 171 communal latrines in use for a population of over 20,000, sanitation may not be in the best place to be compromised.
A recent report from UNHCR Rwanda stated, “The lack of sufficient space in the camps means that houses are built very close to each other, which raises sanitation and hygiene-related problems.”
“ In addition, the size of a standard house is very small. Each 3x4m (12m²) house is intended to accommodate four persons; but very often, each house accommodates six, seven or eight people. Spacing is so limited that children are sent out to sleep with neighbors - a practice that has serious security and safety implications, especially for females,” the report pointed out.
Unfortunately, this is an issue only the Rwandan government can address as this population rapidly grows without any more land allocation since their meager beginnings in 1997. Currently, over 20,000 residents are residing in a living space originally allocated for 14,000. With the current land shortage in Rwanda, MIDIMAR is not readily looking to provide land for this population
To the question of firewood Bronee, and UNHCR Camp Director, Richard Ndaula told us, “Each month, 800 steers of firewood are distributed in Gihembe camp and in Kiziba camp (Karongi District); while Nyabiheke, owing to its smaller population, receives 700 steers. The steers are then distributed among households.”
“Of course, everybody knows when you send a girl to fetch water or firewood, they could easily be molested or raped. But in our culture, it is so shameful most will not even tell you if it has happened,” Coretta explained matter-of-factly.
A Dangerous Asylum
Corretta points to a plot of flat rubble, and says, “ This is where a house fell down and killed a family last year.” She continued walking as she said this; apparently it was not the most interesting news she had to tell us.
Experiencing the refugees ever transient and harsh living conditions, it maybe be easy to believe almost every devastating story that comes to ear. One almost feels guilty not to. However, as we came to discover, the facts sometimes simply did not match up with the refugees dire tales.
As we walked through the residences, local men showed pointing to various dirt mounds, they informed us that these were covered latrine pits. Over 11 children has fallen and died into these pits, they lamented.
Most recently on Friday of last week, a bizarre incident involving the death of three young children 11 year-old Paul Mugisho, Denise Nyinawabeza and 13 year-old Ingabire Muhoza occurred. The three were sent to fetch white mineral sand from the pit that stretched to the size of a miniature canyon, when they an avalanche of loose rocks and sand engulfed them, instantly taking their lives.
Mother of one of the deceased girls, Mahoro Nyirakamana told us this is not the first death of among her children, “We escaped death 17 years ago in Congo but there is another kind of war here in the camp, our people are dying day and night”
Sister Feza Barmurange 36 whispered to us, “ We just keep her close because she keeps speak of suicide.”
It was the fifth house we had walked into that day without a visible mosquito net.
After further investigation into why these children were sent to fetch this sand in the first place, we uncovered another layer to this story.
Thadeo Gatanazi, father of one of the deceased explained, “We are required to paint our houses with the sand, to receive a tent to prevent leaks into our house. We have to get that white sand, and that pit is the only place you can get it.”
Currently 3000 tents sit in stock at the camp, yet to be given out to those who need them.
The funeral for the three children and one other lost to “sanitation problems,” took place later that evening.
Gatanazi went on further to tell us, “But to get to solution to such problems, leaders should always first understand the impact of their decisions before requiring us to obtain that sand or they should adopt alternatives and bring the sand to us.”
Despite the refugees many complaints about camp leaders, many are working hard to push for an increase in camp safety, but find it difficult to do so without adequate local resources and the rapidly growing refugee population.
Other men congregated in the house chimed in with numerous anecdotes.
One anonymous leader added, “Top leaders do not want us to expose problems here to the public because they are afraid of what will happen. But sometimes what they do is just not right.”
The truth in these statements however, proved to be little. In fact, more often than not many refugees in desperation choose to blame local camp leaders for their current limbo, and for care takers attempting to provide for all their needs, this does not make their task any easier.
Richard Ndaula, UNHCR Head of the Field Office in Gihembe refuted these claims and simply said; “It was a tragic and very sad incident, but then I wonder why the activity was done by children instead of their parents.”
He added the requirement is a part of various projects going on in the camp including a shelter project where the ARC is constructing and requiring refugees to plaster the house themselves in order to empower refugees to be self-sufficient and reduce dependence on to hand-to-mouth aid.
Ndaula said the policy has been there for over the last 10 years.
In addition to bizarre safety related accidents involving young children inside the camp, adolescents face great vulnerability to safety breaches outside the limits of the camp.
“Life for girls is the worst because when we can’t feed them, they go into town to sell themselves to soldiers or as house girls for food. We tell them not to, but what can we do when we do not want them to starve?” Seremi Enock 36 pointed out to us.
“Boys they find other means, sometimes stealing or becoming vagrants. Some work as houseboys, but are actually forced into relationships with their owner, then come home with diseases.”
Currently, only one police officer from the local district is assigned particularly to the Gihembe refugee camp, with the aid of 25 Refugee security guards.
In the most recent report from UNHCR, it seems officials are aware of most of these issues and are working to help prevent them in the future. Bronee told us, “Some of the challenging issues are funding for secondary education, security in the camp, problems relating to 'community behavior'.”
Community behavior ranges from teaching children the importance of respecting parental authority, of attending school, of staying away from delinquency and other disruptive behaviors, and on the preventing Gender-Based Violence and HIV/AIDS.
The Strangers in the Mountains
As we walked away from the lives families that had ushered us excitedly into their 3 by 4 meter houses, we questioned if any sources of reprieve existed in this place.
What do you do for fun here? We asked the eagerly awaiting women. They laughed, but not as heartily as we would have liked.
“We pray,” they said smiling for the first time, “ Sometimes to forget what happened, sometimes to forget what is happening.”
The Gihembe camp’s population has not received any new asylum seekers since 2009. It is growing at a rate of 30 children per month, and since its opening in 1997 has grown naturally from 14,000 to 20,000 residents.
The eastern province of the DRC remains volatile with the presence of FDLR instilling great fear in the residents of North and South Kivu.
Rwanda hosts approximately 55,000 refugees from its neighboring countries with 95% of the population originating from the Eastern DRC particularly from the North and South Kivu regions.
Close to 97% per cent of the refugees in Rwanda are camp-based; they either reside in one of the 3 refugee camps, or are transiting in one of the two Transit Centers on the Congolese border.
Among a rapidly grown population, in 2010 UNHCR’s Annual Program Budget was cut from USD 8,174,298 in 2009 to USD 3,999,256, a 48% reduction. Of the total operational budget for 2011, USD 10,550,075 was used for care and assistance programs for over 55,000 camp-based and urban refugees. That is barely USD 200 per person annually.
How the UN is even managing to uphold adequate operations on this budget is truly amazing. However, it is impossible to continue on this path.
Moreover in Gihembe, it is difficult to find a resident who has not been residing in the camp for over a decade, or children who have not spent their childhood in the camp. Many have never even seen their “country of origin” and others hardly remember what it looked like. For thousands of children, Rwanda is the only country they have ever known.
More often not, residents are confused.
As those above 16 undergoe the process of receiving their Refugee ID card, they know they will not be given the same benefits as Rwandese. The progress of Rwanda in providing Mutuelles, adequate food programs and education for all, will never be their own.
And as Mahoro Nyirakamana, told us emptily as we left her home, “We don’t know where we are going anymore.”
With inadequate funds, a growing population and many who are more familiar with Rwanda than the Congo, the time has come to question whether or not we must change our approach their futures, and therefore, their present.
For UNHCR, this is what they have termed finding a “durable solution,” and is something that has been on their minds for a long time now.
There are three main options: Voluntary return, integrate locally or resettled into a third country. Local integration is unlikely understand Rwanda’s densely populated country and land shortage.
In regards to voluntary return, Bronee explained to us, “Indeed the situation in their country is still volatile. As a result, an organized return by UNHCR presents certain risks for them; therefore, we are not promoting voluntary repatriation. This does not mean to say that refugees are not free to return to DRC spontaneously.”
The last option of resettlement depends highly on neighboring countries and cannot help the majority living in Rwanda.
As Bronee concluded, “The situation for Congolese refugees in Rwanda is protracted, sensitive and difficult. In the meantime, and until the situation in DRC improves, UNHCR and the Government of Rwanda will continue to assist and protect these refugees within Rwandan borders.”
As they look toward their futures, with a half empty pockets, the UNHCR has not lost hope for those under their care. But without the due return of their budget back to functioning levels, and no durable solution in sight, the refugees of Gihembe may remain strangers in mountains, lost indefinitely.
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