{"id":27982,"date":"2016-08-23T04:45:04","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T04:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/rwandan-refugees-head-home-after-a-generation-in\/"},"modified":"2016-08-25T05:30:40","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T05:30:40","slug":"rwandan-refugees-head-home-after-a-generation-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/rwandan-refugees-head-home-after-a-generation-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwandan refugees head home after a generation in Angola"},"content":{"rendered":"

{After fleeing the horrors of the 1994 genocide perpetrated against Tutsi, increasing numbers are ready to return to Rwanda, although many still worry about how they will cope after decades away.}<\/p>\n

Musabyenamariya Fratenata\u2019s husband died five years ago, leaving her struggling to find the money to raise their six children alone in Angola.<\/p>\n

Originally from Rwanda, she fled during the horrors of the 1994 genocide, and has been a refugee ever since. Now, she is finally going home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a long time since I left Rwanda and I cannot imagine how everything is now, but I am very excited to go back and finally see my family again,\u201d Fratenata said as she packed and prepared to leave Angola, her home for 18 years and the place where all her children were born.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy younger siblings were very little and I cannot remember them very well, and neither can they remember me, I want us to get to know each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fratenata and her family are among 340 Rwandans living in Angola whose legal status as refugees is expected to come to an end in September. The change is encouraging many to consider returning home, and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is ready to help all of those who want to return to Rwanda as part of its global drive to find \u2018durable solutions\u2019 for long-term refugees.<\/p>\n

{{\u201cFor years, the Rwandese community in Angola was sceptical about returning to Rwanda.\u201d}}<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, the Rwandese community in Angola was sceptical about returning to Rwanda,\u201d says Manuel Abrigada, UNHCR\u2019s Senior Protection Associate in Luanda, the Angolan capital. Reasons included historical concerns about insecurity, and more recent worries about integrating back into their communities after staying so long away.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, with the feedback from the few families that are going back, they are starting to change their minds,\u201d Abrigada continues. \u201cRepatriation is becoming more appealing for the Rwandese refugees and more are considering going back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fratenata, 38, said she was unsure what the future would hold once she returned to Rwanda, which she fled aged 16 when horrific ethnic violence engulfed the country.
\nShe speaks to her parents and relatives back at home on the telephone when she can afford the call charges, and says they are excited to welcome her back. But she was keen that UNHCR would help her family settle down once they arrived back to rural Rwanda.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family is waiting for me and they will help us,\u201d she says. \u201cI will work with my relatives in agriculture and my parents, at the beginning, will assist me sending my children to school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lambert, Fratenata\u2019s 17-year-old eldest son, was forced to drop out of school after his father died because his mother could no longer afford the school fees. He is excited about restarting his education once he is in Rwanda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will miss very much my Angolan friends and the church, but I hope that I can finish my studies in Rwanda and enrol in university to study accounting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

{{\u201cI had never been to Kigali before, but we used to see it on TV and it is totally different from what I thought.\u201d}}<\/p>\n

For his younger siblings, there is only the excitement of travelling to the place they are told is their home, even though they have never been there. Nizeyimana and Sebastiao, two of Lambert\u2019s brothers, laugh and say together: \u201cWe are Rwandans.\u201d
\nFratenata\u2019s family are the not the first Rwandan refugees to return home recently from Angola. Several others have already made the move. Among them are two brothers, Uwizeyimana Donatien and Ndasyisabye Donath, who are now home after 22 years away.<\/p>\n

\u201cArriving here in Rwanda, everything was quite new,\u201d said Uwizeyimana, 33, who worked at an internet caf\u00e9 in Luanda. \u201cI had never been to Kigali before, but we used to see it on TV and it is totally different from what I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

His brother said there he heard many rumours about the dangers of returning home before he left Angola.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople used to say that there is no security and liberty in Rwanda,\u201d he said. \u201cThey told us that if we went back, we will be imprisoned; but I can see that Rwanda has transformed. It was just gossip.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Musabyemariya<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{After fleeing the horrors of the 1994 genocide perpetrated against Tutsi, increasing numbers are ready to return to Rwanda, although many still worry about how they will cope after decades away.} Musabyenamariya Fratenata\u2019s husband died five years ago, leaving her struggling to find the money to raise their six children alone in Angola. Originally from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[2667],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-unhcr"],"bylines":[{"id":2667,"name":"UNHCR","slug":"unhcr","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2667,"name":"UNHCR","slug":"unhcr","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27982"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27982"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}