At least Rwf11 billion has been allocated for the renovation of housing units for vulnerable survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the Ministry of National Unity and Civic Engagement has said.

Julienne Uwacu, Executive Director in charge of Community Resilience at the ministry, said at least 691 houses will be complete by June this year.

She said most of the vulnerable Genocide survivors’ houses were built between 1994 and 2012 with weak materials as the country was rushing to respond to their housing needs.

"Therefore, most of them have to be renovated. This year, Rwf11 billion was allocated to districts to renovate and build new houses for the vulnerable survivors,” she said.

Uwacu said a recent assessment will also reveal the exact number of houses that need renovation in the coming years.

"The houses built since 2013 need to be maintained because they are strong,” she said.

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An assessment found that some of the survivors’ houses are in need of renovation, while others need complete reconstruction.

At least 80 per cent of the dilapidated houses have to be pulled down to build new ones, officials said.

In the past five financial years, MINUBUMWE said that Rwf49.8 billion has been invested in constructing and rehabilitating 4,246 houses for vulnerable Genocide survivors.

It shows that Rwf9.5 billion was invested in the 2017/18 fiscal year for 975 houses, Rwf14.4 billion in 2018/19 for 1,186 houses, Rwf6.7 billion in 2019/2020 for 563 houses, Rwf8.1 billion in 2020/2021 for 662 houses and Rwf11 billion in 2021/22 for constructing and rehabilitating 860 houses.

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From 1998 to 2020, Rwanda built new houses for 29,015 vulnerable Genocide survivors who didn’t have them before and renovated 4,050.

In 2022, The Ministry of National Unity and Civic Engagements (MINUBUMWE) pledged to solve all shelter-related challenges for survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi by 2026.

The permanent secretary of the Ministry of National Unity and Civic Engagement, Clarisse Munezero, last week, said that another assessment of the survivors’ shelter status was carried out across the country.

"We are going to analyse the findings so that we come up with a plan to know the number of houses in every district that have to be renovated in the next fiscal year,” she said.