(Photo by Atwine Allen / ©Diplomatic Times) Congolese refugees inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda who have fled the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after an outbreak of fighting in March between March 23 (M23 Movement M23) rebels and Armed Forces of the DR Congo.
By Atwine Allen – DIPLOMATIC TIMES CORRESPONDENT
KISORO, UGANDA – It looked like a worst nightmare entering the Nyakabande Transit Camp in the south west Kisoro District of Uganda full of thousands of refugees who have fled the DR Congo. I observe a sea of people with sad faces as far as the eye can see. I sat with a group of children and there was one little girl I was told who is not aware that her mother died two days ago while giving birth. Many young children unaccompanied by parents are here in the refugee camp. These young children without parents was the most emotionally painful part of the refugee camp. However much they try to distract these children from their situation by playing music and sports, it could not erase the sadness written deep in their faces. Many children were malnourished. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, alongside the Government of Uganda and humanitarian partners, is assisting some 70,000 refugees after they fled violent clashes in the DRC which began on 28 March 2022. A steady flow of children, women, and men arrive from Rutchuru territory in the North Kivu Provience of eastern DRC, some 8 kilometres from the Bunagana border crossing in Uganda’s Kisoro district.
According to UNHCR, as people arrived in Uganda on 28 and 29 March, artillery fire and gunshots could be heard from across the DRC border, indicating that clashes were ongoing. Several people arrived with gunshot wounds and were taken for medical treatment.
(Photo by Atwine Allen / ©Diplomatic Times) Congolese refugees inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda who have fled the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Rushuru district after an outbreak of fighting in March between March 23 (M23 Movement M23) rebels and Armed Forces of the DR Congo.
YOUTUBE VIDEO INSIDE REFUGEE TRANSIT CAMP IN UGANDA
DR CONGO FIGHTING FORCES THOUSANDS TO FLEE TO UGANDA
I spoke with one refugee from DR Congo who has been in the camp in Kisoro one week. But he said it is as if he has been in refugee camps in Uganda all of his life. He says he is 48-years-old but looks as if he is in his late 60’s. His face has a sad expression full of stress lines. He told me through an interpreter that he has been back and forth from his home in DR Congo and Uganda. “They tell me there is peace in DRC but on going back there, the war starts again we return to the camp in Uganda.” Refugees have been fleeing conflict-torn DRC to Uganda for the past 30 years. It has been on again-off-again conflict that has disrupted the lives of millions. Fresh waves of unrest in the DRC have displaced an estimated 6 million people between 2017 and 2022 – namely in the Kasai, Tanganyika, Ituri and Kivu regions. Uganda is known as hosting the largest number of refugees in Africa, more than a million over the past few decades. For some DRC refugees, the first stop to a better life is here in the Kisoro refugee camp. But many wish to return to their home in DRC once the violence stops and it is safe to go back.
(Diplomatic Times East Africa Correspondent Atwine Allen (left) with refugee from DR Congo inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda (July 07, 2022)
I spoke with an older Congelese woman who told me that she had walked without food or water and slept in bushes for about 5 days until she reached the refugee camp in Kisoro. She said all of her daughters are grown up and married and that they went to other refugee camps in the DRC.
DIPLOMATIC TIMES VIDEO / DIPLOMATIC TIMES EAST AFRICA CORRESPONDENT Atwine Allen reports on Congolese refugees inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda.
“I am not sure whether they are dead or alive,” she said of her daughters in DRC. “I walked for days without food and water and when I was almost reaching Kisoro, that is when I found the UN trucks that helped me up to the camp.”
(Diplomatic Times East Africa Correspondent Atwine Allen (left) with Congolese refugee children inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda (July 07, 2022). Some of the babies have no parents.
(Photo by Atwine Allen / ©Diplomatic Times) Congolese family of refugees inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda who fled the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Rushuru district after an outbreak of fighting in March between March 23 (M23 Movement M23) rebels and Armed Forces of the DR Congo.
DIPLOMATIC TIMES VIDEO / DIPLOMATIC TIMES EAST AFRICA CORRESPONDENT Atwine Allen reports on Congolese refugees inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda.
UNHCR and Uganda’s Office of the Prime Minister – which manages several transit centres for asylum seekers along the Congolese border – are responding to the emergency in coordination with district and local authorities and partners. According to UNHCR, most of the new arrivals are sheltering in and around the market and elsewhere in the community. UNHCR said that like many previous incidents, the refugees want to stay close to the border so they can more easily get news of what is happening in their villages, in the hope that the violence stops and they can return home. However, many are afraid to go back.
Many Congolese Children Arrive At Uganda refugee camp without parents
(Photo by Atwine Allen / ©Diplomatic Times) Congolese children inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda. Many children have have fled the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Rushuru district without their parents after an outbreak of fighting in March between March 23 (M23 Movement M23) rebels and Armed Forces of the DR Congo.
800 Children Lost Contact With Parents in DR Congo
More than eight hundred children have lost contact with their parents in the wake of violent clashes in Rutshuru Territory between the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and fighters from the March 23 Movement (M23). The ICRC and the Red Cross Society of the DRC have set up a free telephone service for displaced people who have been separated from their loved ones.
-International Committee of the Red Cross
“The fighting induced a sense of panic. Family members lost contact with one another as they fled. The situation is particularly distressing for children, the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities,” said Pamela Ongoma, the head of the ICRC’s Restoring Family Links programme in the DRC.
“Our Red Cross teams in Uganda and the DRC tell us that 800 children have been separated from their families as a result of the upsurge in violence in Rutshuru Territory,” says Roman Machover, the ICRC’s head of Programmes and Prevention in the DRC.
(Photo by Atwine Allen / ©Diplomatic Times) Congolese children inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda. Many children have have fled the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Rushuru district without their parents after an outbreak of fighting in March between March 23 (M23 Movement M23) rebels and Armed Forces of the DR Congo.
(Photo by Atwine Allen / ©Diplomatic Times) Congolese children inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda. Many children have have fled the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Rushuru district without their parents after an outbreak of fighting in March between March 23 (M23 Movement M23) rebels and Armed Forces of the DR Congo.
Unfortunately, the volatile security situation in the region makes searching for missing people and reuniting them with their families difficult, according to the Red Cross.
Access to areas where displaced people originally come from is risky and the family members are constantly on the move. In addition, the teams on the ground can only reunite children with their families when the conditions are right. “As soon as the security situation allows it, the ICRC will be able to send teams into the areas of Rutshuru where the people we’re looking for could be,” said Pamela Ongoma, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ (ICRC) Restoring Family Links program in the DR Congo.
(Photo by Atwine Allen / ©Diplomatic Times) Congolese child inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda. Many children have have fled the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Rushuru district without their parents after an outbreak of fighting in March between March 23 (M23 Movement M23) rebels and Armed Forces of the DR Congo.
(Photo by Atwine Allen / ©Diplomatic Times) Congolese children inside the Nyakabande Transit Camp in Kisoro district of Uganda. Many children have have fled the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Rushuru district without their parents after an outbreak of fighting in March between March 23 (M23 Movement M23) rebels and Armed Forces of the DR Congo.
155 unaccompanied children reunited with their families at the Nyakabande transit centre
On the positive, there ICRC reports that some 155 unaccompanied children have been united with familes at the refugee centre in Kisoro. Free telephone calls have helped. The ICRC and the Red Cross Society of the DRC have set up a free telephone service for displaced people who have been separated from their loved ones. Displaced people often do not have the means to pay to make telephone calls. Since March, more than 4,088 free telephone calls were made by refugees. (Another 2,210 calls were made but no one picked up.)
