UNHCR: One refugee without hope is one too many

For the 60th celebration of World Refugee Day, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has launched the ‘One-campaign’. Main message: ‘One refugee without hope is one too many’.
By Passy Mubalama, Goma
This awareness campaign, which will stretch over six months, is aimed at motivating people to assist those who fled armed conflicts in their countries. For Céline Schmitt, who works for UNHCR in Kinshasa, it is “important to acknowledge that a refugee also has rights. Refugee children, for instance, should be provided with food, shelter and education.”
According to a UNHCR report, there are more than 55,000 Congolese refugees in Rwanda, 40,000 of which come from North Kivu, more specifically Masisi and Rutshuru. In Uganda, there are 60,364 Congolese refugees, 46,000 of whom originate from Rutshuru in eastern DRC, close to the Ugandan border.
Suffering
Because of the difficult living conditions in most refugee camps, many refugees want to return to their home country. Uwimana, a Rwandan refugee living with her five children in a small hut in the Masisi refugee camp, shares her family’s hardships. “In the camp, there’s only suffering. We hardly manage to eat and the children do not go to school. The situation is very unstable. All we want is to return to our country”, she despairs.
Another woman, also from Rwanda, adds: “When it rains here, it’s a disaster. We are completely soaked. We left our plantations, our houses and our cattle because of the war. Everything has been looted. All we want is to return to our country and start a new life.”
Repatriation obstacles
Security in most refugee camps in Masisi and Rutshuru remains a major challenge for the UNHCR. It is far from guaranteed, confirms Karen, a UNHCR officer in charge of civilian protection in Goma: “It is not the UNHCR’s duty to decide on the establishment of local arbitration committees. In this case, it is the government of the DRC that has to ensure that civilians as well as refugees are protected inside its borders.”
For Karen, the situation in North Kivu is volatile and changes daily. “The volatile situation in North Kivu is a great obstacle to the repatriation of refugees. We, as the UNHCR, cannot facilitate repatriation as long as there is insecurity.”
Sluggish delay
The Tripartite, a cooperation agreement between the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda with the main aim of exchanging information on the movement of ‘negatives forces’ along shared borderlines, was signed more than a year ago. But to date, no repatriation has been carried out.
“Sluggish monitoring of Congolese refugees in Rwanda and Rwandan refugees in DRC is partly cause of this delay,” says Karen. “But the high insecurity, which still has not improved, also plays a role. All these issues will hopefully be discussed by July so that a lasting solution will be put into place to facilitate repatriation.”