{"id":55361,"date":"2025-08-25T13:40:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T13:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/more-than-500-rwandans-repatriated-from-drc\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T17:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T17:36:18","slug":"more-than-500-rwandans-repatriated-from-drc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/more-than-500-rwandans-repatriated-from-drc\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 500 Rwandans repatriated from DRC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The returnees were received by the government on Monday, August 25, 2025, and will be accommodated at the Nyarushishi Transit Center in Rusizi district before resuming normal life.<\/p>\n<p>The repatriation follows decisions made during a high-level tripartite ministerial meeting between Rwanda, the DRC, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 24, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the returnees had been staying in the temporary Goma camp after fleeing areas in eastern DRC, where they were previously held captive by the FDLR militia group.<\/p>\n<p>Egide Twagirumukiza, 65, who has lived in the DRC since 1994, said the FDLR had instilled fear among residents, preventing anyone from returning. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey really prevented us from returning! They would either kill you or detain you if you tried to go back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The group joins over 1,100 Rwandans who returned in May 2025 with UNHCR\u2019s support. According to UNHCR, as of August 6, 2025, the temporary Goma camp still hosted 630 Rwandans awaiting return, with another 31 at various sites in Kitshanga, Karuba, and Mweso.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-93089 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_11.33_04_am-6096e.jpg\" alt=\"A total of 532 Rwandans returned from DR Congo on Monday, crossing the Grande Barri\u00e8re border post in Rubavu District. \" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-93088 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_11.35_31_am-cf21e.jpg\" alt=\"UNHCR facilitated the repatriation of the Rwandan nationals.\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-93087 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_10.48_14_am_1_-884d7.jpg\" alt=\"Buses at the border transported the returnees to Nyarushishi Transit Centre.\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-93085 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_10.48_14_am-4ad80.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-93086 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.40_11_pm_1_-0e060.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-93084 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.40_11_pm-bb24a.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-93083 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.37_14_pm-01a9d.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rwanda has welcomed 532 Rwandans who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and wished to return home voluntarily. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000093090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-55361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000093090,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.37_14_pm-01a9dlogo.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.37_14_pm-01a9dlogo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.37_14_pm-01a9dlogo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.37_14_pm-01a9dlogo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.37_14_pm-01a9dlogo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-25_at_12.37_14_pm-01a9dlogo.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55361","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000093090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55361"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=55361"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=55361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}