Rwanda on Sunday joined the global community to celebrate World Refugee Day. Every year on June 20, all UN member states celebrate the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home countries to escape conflict or persecution. In Rwanda, the highlight of the day was a message by the Minister of Emergency Management – which also handles the refugee docket – where she reiterated Rwanda’s commitment to the better welfare of refugee communities currently hosted in Rwanda. Safety of refugees in Rwanda has been a priority over the past 27 years. There has been a deliberate effort by the government to ensure refugees are well catered for and are entitled to social protection services that all Rwandans enjoy. For instance, in Rwanda, refugees have been given identification cards through which they can access all services nationals get; they can compete on the job market like all Rwandans do and they can easily get loans from banks. Children are able to attend school through the 12-year basic education programme while those who are lucky to get funding, just like Rwandans, can proceed to university with no issue. Special communities like urban refugees (those living in towns outside camps) and refugee children who are in boarding schools are entitled to Mutuelle de Sante premiums by the government to ensure they access medical services from where they are free of charge. The government does all this, despite the pressure to continue elevating the quality of life for Rwandans and with meagre resources to do that, because of our own history. For over 30 years, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were kept out of their country and many settled in neighbouring countries, where they tasted the bitterness of life in refuge. Their attempt to return home was flatly rejected by the government at the time, which said that the country was full and so they should be absorbed and naturalized in their respective host countries. It took the liberation struggle by RPF/A- Inkotanyi that all those Rwandans were able to return to their motherland. While it is not our wish to have refugees staying forever given the fact that home is always best, we bank on our own experience to make those that run to us in search of protection stay in as much comfort as possible, until conditions allow for them to return home.
