In Limbo Forever?

A view from Nakivale, a Ugandan Refugee Camp

In December 2002, Human Rights First staff Dismas Nkunda and Deirdre Clancy traveled to Nakivale camp in southwestern Uganda last week to investigate the situation of Rwandan refugees in the region.

From a distance everything looked serene. Beautiful rolling hills and savannah bushes stretched as far as the eye can see. Occasionally we saw herdsmen tending to big herds of cattle. The settlement patterns looked the same all along this dusty and bumpy road from Mbarara to Nakivale.

The first sign that we were getting to our destination was a group of children. Among them were two boys carrying plastic containers of a brown liquid. We inquired what they were carrying. “Amaazi,” they replied, water. They spoke Kinyarwanda, the language spoken of Rwanda. That’s how we knew we were near the camp for Rwandan asylum seekers.

Tucked away inside the bushes were hundreds of very small grass thatched huts that a passerby on the main road can not easily see. This is Kibati; home to more than 3,000 asylum seekers from Rwanda and Burundi.

Kibati is part of the Nakivale refugee settlement, one of the oldest in Uganda and the one time home of thousands of Tutsi who fled Rwanda in the 1960s. Many of these refugees spontaneously repatriated between 1994-1995 after the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) took power in Kigali.

In a sad reversal of movements while the Tutsi returned to Rwanda, Hutus began flowing into Nakivale. Today, there are over 14,000 refugees in Nakivale. The majority are Rwandans, but the population also includes Congolese and Somalis.

But the story of the Kibati refugees is particularly complex one. They are asylum seekers who have been in limbo for almost a year. They have become pawns in a political game. They are rejected everywhere they turn for protection and assistance.

Many of them have been on the move for the last eight years. First they sought assistance in Tanzania. But in 1996, the Tanzanian government announced that all Rwandan refugees should go home by the end of that year because Tanzania could no longer shoulder the burden of hosting them. When the refugees resisted, the Tanzanian military was called in to force them out.

Many returned to Rwanda, only to discover that things had again fallen apart back home. Fearing for the safety of their families, they trooped out of Rwanda back to Tanzania. Soon after they were told that a deadline of December 31 for their return to Rwanda was imminent. Fearing a repeat of the 1996 expulsions to Rwanda, they crossed over the border to Nakivale in Uganda.

At first the Ugandan government welcomed them and accorded over 8,000 protection. As more trickled in, humanitarian organizations - including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) - were alarmed and decided to withhold giving refugee status from new arrivals. But this did not deter others from arriving. The numbers have been on the increase. And with the current repatriation exercise in Tanzania more are expected.

The deputy Camp Commandant says that there have been three deaths so far because of lack of care for asylum seekers who have not yet been assessed and granted refugee status. With no recognition of their refugee status, the asylum seekers are left to fend for themselves and their families. They have no identification papers and are susceptible to arrests and intimidation by local authorities when they venture out to outlying villages to find work and food.

Without protection and assistance, it is just a matter of time before a major health crisis claims the lives of many in this camp.

That is the view held by many Ugandan and humanitarian officials at the camp. Police also fear that a wave of crime will rise in the area as the asylum seekers continue to live in without refugee status or support.

The Camp Commandant was more emphatic when we spoke to him. To illustrate the predicament of poor health he bent down behind his desk and pulled up a plastic bottle of water. “Smell this,” he said. “Look at the color.” With the rains not about to let up, the camps’ inadequate sanitation systems forced refugees to drink and cook with very dirty water. It may not be long before a major outbreak claims lives. And since 50 percent of the asylum seekers are children below the age of 10, it is not difficult to guess who will be most affected.

“We are all potential refugees,” said the commandant. “These people need urgent help from whoever has a heart.” We cannot agree more.