Long-standing feud renders families homeless

BY FLORENCE MUTESI KAYONZA — Two families in Butimba village, Rukara cell, in Kayonza district have been rendered homeless after being thrown out of their property by another family which claimed to be the rightful owners of the land in dispute. The two families became homeless after Francois Bitwayiki and Alex Kagame threw them out of a disputed land which they claimed to be the rightful owners. The evicted family claims to have bought the land and the house which stood on this piece of land for Rwf. 27 million . Those who carried out the eviction allege that the land rightfully belongs to them as their head a certain Desire Gasaruhande fled the country in 1959 and died in Uganda in 1997. This family further alleged that they returned from refuge in Uganda to reclaim their land which was now occupied by the other aggrieved family. However according to Diana Twembi a member of one of the families that were thrown out, the incidence occurred last Wednesday when a man who claims to own the land, accompanied by his legal representative and police invaded their home and forcefully evicted her family from the land in dispute. “They carried off all our family belongings to the sector offices. By the time we arrived from Kigali, we found out that all our belongings had been carted off to the sector offices and we were thus rendered homeless”, Twembi said. She added , “I don’t know if the law allows such kind of forceful eviction especially in the absence of aggrieved parties,” she said referring to her mother who heads the family and was in Kigali while the eviction was carried out. Ends