Humanitarian needs surge as Congolese cross to Rwanda seeking safety
Humanitarian needs surge as Congolese cross to Rwanda seeking safety
Following the increased fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), thousands of Congolese nationals have been forced to flee their homes. Hundreds of them continue to arrive in Rwanda every week seeking safety.
Aline and her son Albert, 2, had no other option but to escape to Rwanda in early January 2023 as fighting intensified in their neighborhood, leaving behind her husband.
The 26-year-old mother initially stayed in Kijote Transit Centre for a week before moving to Nkamira Transit site, in Rubavu district. At Nkamira, she initially stayed in the ‘women and children’ tent alongside 58 other women before being allocated a space in one of the newly constructed communal hangars.
“We left because of the fighting. Our neighbors were being killed. It was not easy to get here, there were lots of checkpoints and militia on the road. Sometimes they took people at the checkpoints, but we are lucky. We made it,” Aline says. “We came to Rwanda because it is more secure than back home. I only came with the clothes we were wearing. It is not possible to carry a bag of our possessions when someone is running after you.”
At the Nkamira transit site, Asifiwe, another Congolese says she decided to flee after learning that some of her neighbors were being killed or raped.
Back home, the single mother of a five-year-old son says she had a small business selling clothes. She would go house to house trying to sell clothes to make a little money, enough to buy food for her and her son. But with the fighting that stopped.
“We were frightened. We couldn’t sleep without hearing bullets. It took three days to get to Rwanda because of the checkpoints,” she recounts. “My parents are dead, and I am just on my own with my son, so it is difficult sometimes.”
The escalating violence in eastern DRC has forced over 5,400 new asylum seekers to seek safety in Rwanda over the last three months. The new arrivals are currently being accommodated at Nkamira Transit Sites in the north-west of the country while some who arrived prior to January 12 were transferred to Mahama refugee camp located in the eastern part of Rwanda.
In addition to the new arrivals, Rwanda also hosts 72,200 Congolese refugees in five camps across the country. Some of them have been living in the camps for almost three decades.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, alongside the Government of Rwanda, UN agencies and humanitarian partners, have been urgently scaling up the response to provide the new arrivals with humanitarian assistance.
The development of Nkamira Transit Site started on January 12 and over a month later now consists of ten tents and thirty communal hangars with more shelter being constructed every day to meet the pace of the new arrivals. Latrines, shower blocks, and a kitchen have been built, a health post established and counselling and psychosocial services are available to support the new arrivals process what they have fled.
Despite the ongoing efforts to respond to surging needs, access to basic needs such as shelter to prevent overcrowding, medicine, stocks of food, mattresses, and others remains out of reach.
Grace, who was forced to flee her home in Masisi and left all her possessions behind, says she for instance has to borrow changes of clothes from some of the other women there at Nkamira transit site.
According to Mugisha*, a Congolese asylum seeker who was chosen as the asylum seeker president at Nkamira Transit Site after being one of the first arrivals in early January, there is still lots to be done as Nkamira transit site is only just being built.
“We need mattresses, cooking sets, better toilet facilities and more tents because where we are sleeping now is very crowded,” he explains.
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*Name changed for protection purposes