Eight families of Genocide survivors, native of Nyaruguru district, Southern Rwanda, this week made their return to their home district after spending 18 years in the neighbouring town district of Huye.
The eight families have now been sheltered, free of charge, in a grouped habitat in Agasharu cell of Kibeho sector in Nyaruguru district – a far better situation compared to the 18 years they had spent renting houses mainly in Ngoma sector in Huye district.
“Sometimes we could be kicked out of the house after failing to pay for the rent at the end of the month”, recalls one of the returnees.
“But that is over now for good”, he added, a smile spreading over his face.
According to Nyaruguru district Mayor, François Habitegeko, these families of Genocide survivors fled to neighbouring Burundi for their safety during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
They returned to Rwanda a few months later, once the Genocide halted, deciding to settle in Huye district as their houses had been burnt down during the Genocide and there was still “some level of insecurity” in Nyaruguru – by then hosting the Kibeho camp for internally displaced people in the French-manned “Zone Turquoise”.
And the “Zone Turquoise”, created through the French army’s Turquoise Operation in June 1994, had “a purely humanitarian purpose of protecting civilians” [during the Genocide], according to a fictive French Colonel in the French-language movie “Opération Tuquoise”, played in Rwanda years later and inspired of the Turquoise Operation.
But critics of the operation allege that it was there to provide for a safe haven for members of the Genocide government and make it easy for them to flee Rwanda, unharmed.
33 more families of Genocide survivors, currently still living in Huye district, are expected to be housed in their native Nyaruguru district before the end of the year, according to Angélique Nireberaho, Nyaruguru district’s Vice Mayor in charge of social affairs.