REPORTAGE
Violence in the DRC: Congolese refugees in Rwanda demand to be able to return home
Audio 01:32
Rwandophone Congolese refugees demonstrate against violence in eastern DRC and demand the right to return safely to their country, 12/12/2022.
© Lucie Mouillaud/RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
In Rwanda, mostly Rwandophone Congolese refugees protested this Monday, December 12 in the Kigeme camp, in the south of the country.
A demonstration against the violence and discrimination faced by their loved ones, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
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While for several days, various members of the international community have been asking Kigali to cease all support for the armed group M23 – a support denied by the Rwandan government – the refugees are asking for the right to return, in complete safety, to their country.
“
To live is my right
,” several of them wrote on their placards Monday morning in Kigeme camp.
Among them, Solange demands justice for the Rwandophone Congolese.
“
We are protesting against violence and torture against Tutsis living in the DRC, our relatives.
I can't go back there because of groups like the FDLR, the FARDC, the Nyatura and the Mai-Mai who don't want us and who are fighting us,
” she explains.
"
We want to go back
", chant a few hundred people in this camp of nearly 15,000 refugees, in front of the national and international media, informed of the gathering by the Rwandan authorities.
The vast majority of them arrived in the country in 2012. This is the case of Jacques, a former teacher from Masisi, in North Kivu.
“
We are tired of staying in camp,
” he says.
In ten years, I haven't even had a goat.
What future, what legacy, what will I leave to my descendants
?
»
Through this march, the demonstrators hope to raise awareness about the situation of Rwandophone Congolese in the DRC.
“
It can be seen that the international community is watching what is happening in Congo and remains silent,
deplores Edson Munyakarambi, president of the Kigeme refugees
.
We want the right not to stay in the camp.
We have the right like so many others.
»
The demonstration took place a few days after new declarations by France and Belgium, following that of the United States, asking Rwanda to cease all support for the armed group of M23, in the east of the DRC. .
Support still denied by Kigali.
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