Visit to Gihembe Refugee Camp Sat September 2, 2006
on Annemiek Miller (Rwanda), 22/Sep/2006 16:09, 34 days ago
As part of an outing with a Global Education Working Group, I visited the Gihembe Camp in Biyumba, a city in the north of the country, about an hour’s drive from Kigali. There are a number of refugee camps in Rwanda. They shelter refugees from Burundi or as is the case in the Gihembe camp, refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Buyumba is quite far from the Congo, so many of us on the way to the camp were not actually sure wherethe refugees in Gihembe were from. We soon learned they were Tutsi’s who had fled from the Congo.This camp was actually established in December of 1997 at which time most of the refugees were transferred from Gisenyi near the Congolese border. In March 1998, the first count established a population of 14,248 persons. Subsequent movements took place until 2004.The demographics of this camp are staggering: it is huge - 17,274 people of whom 10, 500 are under the age of 18! In this group there are marginally more females than males. In the next age group, 18-59, there are 1110 women and 537 men! There were no birth rate figures, but it must be significant, given there are more than 3000 children between ages 0-4 yrs. There are also close to 100 single, young, mothers under the age of 18. I missed the medical part of this tour as I was talking to the literacy educators, but I saw no sign of any birth control counselling. This camp is run by UNHCR with the following partners : Government of Rwanda (MINELOC), American Refugee Committee (ARC), Jesuit Refugee Service(JRS), German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) , World Food Program (WFP) During our visit we learned that this camp is in effect run by the Jesuit Refugee Service.The literacy program in this camp will be discontinued in December as there are no more funds. In September 2006 there were 271 adults enrolled, 33 men and 238 women. The Head of this program is very concerned about the future of these women, many of whom have been abandoned by their spouses. What will become of these women?My impressions as I walked through the camp: Very friendly children and adults. There was a sense of structure and organization, but also of a very densely populated area. Speaking to the educators, one can see they work hard under difficult circumstances; not unlike what I see in the South Province of Rwanda. One marked difference is the quality of French spoken, however. The students I spoke to who were in third form preparing for Tronc Commun, were very well spoken in French, something one is not likely to encounter in the rural parts of the South province.