Rwanda, on Friday, February 27, received 59 families—208 nationals in total—voluntarily returning from eastern DR Congo.
The returnees crossed into Rwanda through the Grande Barrière border post in Rubavu District with support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which facilitates the repatriation process.
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The returnees—mainly women and children—follows the capture of Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, and other parts of South Kivu Province by the AFC/M23 rebels in late January 2025.
According to officials, the group had been held by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group formed by Rwandan Hutus, including perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, who fled to eastern DR Congo and continue to pursue the objective of overthrowing the Rwandan government by force.
Rubavu District Mayor, Prosper Mulindwa, welcomed the families and urged them to embrace unity and reject any form of divisionism that led the country into darkness during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, in which more than one million people were killed.
“You spent many years outside the country, and the Rwanda you left in 1994 has completely changed,” Mulindwa noted in his welcoming remarks. “After crossing the border, you should know that unity is the foundation of this country’s development, and it is what you should build your lives on.”
Mulindwa added that hate speech and divisionism in the areas they’re coming from remain a major concern.
“They were told they would be killed upon arrival in Rwanda,” he said. “They were told that Rwanda is ruled only by Tutsis, which is not true.”
One of the returnees, Emmanuel Sibomana, 35, left Rwanda in 2005 and settled in Masisi, where he worked as a scrap metal trader. He said he had been prevented from returning home by the FDLR.
“I went to Congo looking for a better life,” Sibomana narrated. “But we were held against our will and blocked from returning. They told us that if we came back, we would be killed.”
Figures from the emergency ministry indicate that approximately 3.5 million Rwandans have been repatriated from DR Congo over the past three decades. At the same time, Rwanda continues to host more than 100,000 Congolese refugees.
Meanwhile, efforts to repatriate Congolese refugees to DR Congo have yet to yield significant progress, despite agreements signed by the two countries on July 2024 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
