Mahama (Rwanda): lack of housing for new refugees

New refugees, especially Congolese, are struggling to find a place to stay in in the Mahama camp. The administration is building more than 500 new houses. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The most affected are Congolese newly transferred to this camp from the Nkamira transit camp. More than 25,000 have been admitted to the camp since the beginning of this year following clashes between the M23 rebel movement and the Congolese army supported by local militias backed by the Congolese authorities, the SADEC force (Southern African Development Community) and the FDNB (Burundi National Defense Force) in particular.

Most of these asylum seekers are housed in a so-called confinement or waiting center, formerly reserved for Covid-19 patients or Burundian refugees about to be repatriated. However, the location has become cramped due to the growing number of new refugees.

“Normally, newcomers are installed in the houses of Burundians who return voluntarily. But recently, the return movement is no longer massive… And so, the camp is somewhat overcrowded,” explains one of the local leaders who spoke to SOS Médias Burundi.

To alleviate this situation, new houses are being built as an extension of villages 16, 17 and 18.

“Some of these houses are already finished, only windows and doors remain. Others are at the foundation level and the work must be accelerated. We will have to build more than 500 houses, each one will have to accommodate 5 to 8 families,” said site managers.

“A parenthesis that should not be overlooked. The masons and all the workforce are made up of Burundian and Congolese refugees, which is an advantage for us who are in principle destitute, because we still earn money there,” they indicate.

A worrying thing for these refugees is that the new villages under construction are close to the Akagera River that separates Rwanda and Tanzania.

“There are not in any case 100 meters between Akagera and these houses as I see it. Either their safety will be threatened by hippos or floods while this river flows into the surroundings with the risk that its backwaters could carry away human lives, as long as children can play there easily,” say refugees who demand accompanying measures such as the construction of a fence for this area.

But for the Congolese who are impatiently waiting to have a roof, the most important thing is to have “somewhere to spend the night.”

“In the waiting center, we have no privacy, there are a lot of people… We really need houses wherever they are,” said a Congolese refugee.

Currently, the Mahama camp located further east in Rwanda is at risk of being overcrowded, and could far exceed its capacity. It was built to accommodate slightly more than 50,000 people, while it currently has more than 65,000, including more than 40,000 Burundians, others being mainly Congolese.