Rwanda returns from Uganda cross 1,000
Since the start of voluntary repatriation in January, some 1,100 Rwandan refugees have gone home from Uganda as the government in Kigali steps up efforts to welcome its refugees back.
MBARARA, Uganda, March 29 (UNHCR) - More than 1,100 Rwandan refugees have gone home from Uganda this year in an ongoing repatriation movement organised by the UN refugee agency that started in January.
On Monday morning, 228 Rwanda refugees - about half of them children - left Nakivale camp in Uganda's south-western Mbarara district. They travelled south in five UNHCR trucks and crossed the Rwandan border, where they were welcomed by fellow Rwandans. The returnees were visibly happy to be back. Many had not seen their home country in at least 10 years, while their children had been born in the settlements and were setting foot in Rwanda for the first time.
Two more convoys of a similar size from Uganda's Oruchinga and Kyaka II camps are scheduled to follow this week. Of the 3,000 Rwandan refugees who have registered for the UNHCR return programme this year, the agency expects that more than half will have returned to their country by the end of this week.
An estimated 2 million people fled Rwanda in the wake of the 1994 genocide. UNHCR believes that as at mid-2003, there were still some 60,000 Rwandan refugees in the region. Uganda hosts some 18,000 of them, whom the government hopes to assist home under a voluntary repatriation agreement with the Rwandan government and UNHCR.
The Rwandan authorities have established a transit camp at Byumba, 25 km from the border with Uganda, that can register more than 500 people per day. This modern facility was built to speedily process the returnees back to national status within one day, after which each family will receive a repatriation package containing a basic kitchen set, plastic sheeting, blankets, jerry cans and soap.
The repatriation exercise will continue as long as refugees wish to return home from Uganda's Kyaka II, Nakivale and Oruchinga refugee settlements. A UNHCR-sponsored information campaign is keeping them abreast of safety conditions in Rwanda and urging them to register for an orderly and swift return home.
Eager to welcome back its refugees, the newly-elected government in Rwanda has signed similar agreements with Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The UN refugee agency expects to help two-thirds of the remaining 60,000 Rwandan refugees in the region to return home this year.
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UNHCR Country Operations Plan 2003 - Uganda
1 Sep 2002 ... Rwandans who are residual caseloads of the 1996 repatriation from Tanzania and other new arrivals. The majority of the refugees in the country today are southern Sudanese hosted in northern Uganda ...... -
UNHCR Country Operations Plan 2002 - Uganda
1 Jul 2001 ... in Uganda dates from the 1960s. Though the earlier arrivals of Rwandan had returned in 1994, the country still hosts about 16,859 Rwandans who are residual caseloads of the 1996 repatriation ...... -
UNHCR Global Appeal 2000 - Uganda
1 Dec 1999 ... UGANDA U U G A N D A I N S H O R T Planning Figures Population Jan. 2000 Dec. 2000 Sudanese Refugees Congolese Refugees Rwandan ... Facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Congolese and Rwandan ...... -
UNHCR Global Appeal 2001 - Democratic Republic of the Congo
1 Dec 2000 ... Burundi, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda, and for urban refugees in Kinshasa. • ... About 5,000 Angolans are expected to repatriate voluntarily. 2 Continued instability in ...... -
UNHCR Global Report 2003 - Uganda
1 Jun 2004 ... Strategy (SRS); facilitate volun- tary repatriation for Rwandan refugees whenever possible; provide ... in collaboration with the Gov- ernment of Uganda and implementing partners; and facilitate ...... -
UNHCR Mid-Year Progress Report 2000 - Uganda
1 Sep 2000 ... Rwandan Refugees • Facilitate, whenever possible, voluntary re- patriation of Rwandan refugees in three camps (Nakivale, Oruchinga and Kyaka II) in south-western Uganda and continue multi-sectoral ...... -
UNHCR Global Appeal 2004 - Rwanda
1 Dec 2003 ... UNHCR Global Appeal 2004 7 8 Rwanda Main objectives • Promote the voluntary repatriation of some 80,000 Rwandan refugees ... the Governments of Rwanda and Uganda (which hosts some 25,000 Rwandan ...... -
UNHCR Global Report 2002 - Rwanda
1 Jun 2003 ... Main objectives Continue to facilitate the volun- tary repatriation of Rwandan refu- gees from ... its troops from the DRC but at the same time, relations with Uganda continued to worsen. ...... -
UNHCR Global Appeal 2003 - Southern Africa Regional Overview
1 Dec 2002 ... of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda on the withdrawal of foreign troops from ... Although no major spontaneous repatriation move- ment has occurred as a result of these ......