By: Supreetha Guballa<\/p>\n
{{The Ministry of Disaster preparedness and Refugees has started a week long \u201cCome and See Visit\u201d for three Rwandan Refugees who are living in Lubumbashi, DRC.}}<\/p>\n
The purpose of the visit is to allow the refugees to come back to Rwanda for themselves, assess the situation and choose to return voluntarily.<\/p>\n
The refugees chosen for the visit were Methode Umimana, 17 years, Innocent Hategekimana, 43years and Jean Basco Zumushukuru 18years along with Gaitrie Ammersing, UNHCR Protection Officer .<\/p>\n
Also in the delegation were CNR Representative Theresa Prado from DRC and the ministry official Gaspard Murekezi who will be traveling with the regugees throughout the various provinces of Rwanda to experience what it is like now.<\/p>\n
This morning the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Antoine Ruvebana welcomed the refugees, telling them: \u201cThe current stage of development Rwanda is on is a result of the work of all Rwandans, not an individual effort, what we need now more than ever is to work together. In order to do so, we need our fellow Rwandans in refugee camps to return\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained to them all the changes that have occurred while they were refugees, especially in education sector urged them to avoid the propaganda outside of Rwanda, see for themselves so that repatriation occurs out of individual desire.<\/p>\n
Out of the three refugees that were chosen, only one had lived in Rwanda for a long time but he appreciated the changes he saw upon re-entry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we entered the country no one asked for our identity, so we felt comfortable.\u201d He said adding that the only problem is that many still believed Rwandan refugees coming from the Congo now were working for FDLR, and many refugees in DR Congo were stigmatized, although this is not the case for them.<\/p>\n
Both Umimana and Zumushukuru, revealed they never really knew Rwanda, as they left when they were still infants. Zumushukuru said: \u201cI was always curious about the country and its people, because I did not know what it was like here.\u201d<\/p>\n
UNHCR Representative Ammersing assured the refugees that the UNHCR was indeed there to assist them in understanding how Rwanda has changed and what their possibilities of life here are.<\/p>\n
The group will now be headed to Butare to visit the Nyaruguru district, visit family there and various projects that are taking place there.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow they are scheduled to go to Cyanguga and Rusizi, followed by a visit to the refugee transit center at Nyagatare, Gisenyi, and Rubavu.<\/p>\n
They are expected to be shown all the socio-economic improvement programs taking place in Rwanda that seem to give them positive impression of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Supreetha Guballa {{The Ministry of Disaster preparedness and Refugees has started a week long \u201cCome and See Visit\u201d for three Rwandan Refugees who are living in Lubumbashi, DRC.}} The purpose of the visit is to allow the refugees to come back to Rwanda for themselves, assess the situation and choose to return voluntarily. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"byline":[158],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","byline-b_igi_adm1n"],"bylines":[{"id":158,"name":"b_igi_adm1n","slug":"b_igi_adm1n","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":1}],"contributors":[{"id":158,"name":"b_igi_adm1n","slug":"b_igi_adm1n","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":1}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}