More than 100 families return to Rwanda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
314 Rwandans from 101 households returned from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday, September 24, after crossing the Grande Barriere border station in Rubavu District.
Rwandan authorities and the United Nations Refugee Agency welcomed the returns, who were primarily women and children. Some of them have been in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo for over 30 years, making them the most recent group to come.
They claimed they had been stopped from leaving the DR Congolese woods by members of the FDLR, a group established by former members of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, who threatened them or claimed Rwanda was unsafe.
A high-level meeting between Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the UN Refugee Agency on Voluntary Repatriation of Refugees in Addis Ababa in June decided to include their return as part of the continuing repatriation operations.
When the returnees arrived, they were taken to the Nyarushishi Transit Center in Rusizi District, where they will stay for a while until being reintegrated into their communities.
According to the Ministry of Emergency Management (MINEMA), further groups of more than 4,000 Rwandans have come home from the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2025 on a variety of circumstances, bringing the total number of repatriated citizens since 1994 to 3.5 million.
