RWANDA:Rwandan refugees 'reluctant to leave Zimbabwe'

From the AFRICAN REVIEW

Asylum seekers waiting for help. Zimbabwe's Labour and Social Services minister Paurina Mupariwa has said Rwandan refugees in the southern African nation are reluctant to return home. FILE | AFRICA REVIEW |

By KITSEPILE NYATHI in HararePosted Wednesday, July 6 2011 at 08:57

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Refugees from Rwanda who settled in Zimbabwe are reluctant to return home despite efforts by President Paul Kagame’s government to persuade them to return home.

Thousands of refugees who fled the 1994 genocide in Rwanda found refugee in Zimbabwe.

Rwanda last month sent a delegation that visited Zimbabwe’s biggest refugee camp in Manicaland Province to encourage the refugees to return home.

Zimbabwe’s Labour and Social Services minister Paurina Mupariwa told the refugees at the Tongogara refugee camp that it was now safe to return to their country.

"You would agree with me that there is no place like home and refugee life cannot continue forever,” she was quoted as having said by the state owned Herald newspaper.

Mr Marcelline Hepie, the United Nations High ommission for Refugees (UNCHR) country representative, said more than a quarter of the 5,000 refugees in Zimbabwe originated from the Great Lakes region but the majority were not willing to return home.

Voluntary repatriation

"Rwanda is the only country insisting on the return of all its citizens before the cessation clause befalls on them by the end of the year," Mr Hepie was also quoted by the Herald as having said.

"Following a high level delegation from Rwanda to Zimbabwe to sensitise their citizens on voluntary repatriation, the community is in the process of setting up a commission to join UNHCR and Zimbabwe for a "go and see" visit to Rwanda to ascertain on the conditions of voluntary repatriation in safety and dignity.