Stephen Buckley in Gisenyi, Rwanda
AS they hustled to escape the world’s largest refugee camp last week, thousands of Rwandans left behind some of their most important possessions: their children.
Some youngsters got separated from loved ones during the two weeks when as many as 500 000 Rwandan refugees were crushed into Mugunga camp in eastern Zaire, close to this border town. Others vanished last week when the refugees, tired of two years in exile and two weeks caught between warring militias, began walking to the Rwandan border.
“We left Mugunga during the evening, after the fighting,” said Immaculae Hatungakana (46). “We were walking together, and then I turned around and he was gone. Since then, I have been calling his name over and over on the road.”
Her boy, aged seven, has not answered. He may be among the nearly 2 000 children who have passed through the transit centre for unaccompanied youngsters and infants at the border. Or he may not.
Aid workers said that figure was lower than expected for such an exodus but stressed that they believe thousands more children are still on the Zairian side of the border. No one knows precisely how many children were in the refugee camps in eastern Zaire that for two years held about 1,1-million refugees.
Claver Ntuyenabo (45), said he became separated from his three daughters and two sons while they were hiding in a forest after fighting broke out in their refugee camp three weeks ago.
Ntuyenabo, who crossed into Rwanda alone at the weekend, said that his family left him in the forest because “I was very weak, and I was sick. I told them to wait for me at a particular point. I never saw them. I continued alone to Mugunga. Then I came to Rwanda.”
Relief workers said that such accounts are not uncommon among the unaccompanied children they have seen. But most frequently, they said, children got separated from their parents during the trip from Mugunga.
During their trek to Rwanda at the weekend, the refugees packed the road to the border. Fathers hefted children onto their shoulders. Mothers strapped babies to their backs, and youngsters clung to their skirts, half-running with awkward, choppy strides.
But many children, jugs of water or small sacks on their heads, could not keep up with their families. At times the crush of movement people became especially chaotic.
“Children, hold on to your parents!” aid workers shouted continually through a megaphone as refugees passed the border. “Parents, hold on to your children!” Many tried but could not. – The Washington Post