KAMPALA, 4 August 2009 (IRIN) – Thousands of Rwandan refugees in Uganda could lose their status following the expiry of a deadline for voluntarily return to their country, officials said.
“We have been pushed to the limits, there is no justification for them to remain in Uganda,” Tarsis Kabwengyere, Uganda’s minister of disaster preparedness and refugees, said.
Money, he added, was being spent on refugees whose home country was stable and willing to take them back. Ugandan camps had also swollen due to renewed violence in eastern Congo, and there was need for some refugees to return home.
James Bigirwa, the deputy Resident District commissioner in Isingiro district where Nakivale settlement is located, said some refugees were faking local IDs following the expiry of the 31 July deadline.
In Rwanda, the government said those who did not return by the end of the year would lose citizenship.
“We shall apply the secession clause if they have not returned by the end of December, there is no more reason for any Rwandan to become a refugee,” Innocent Ngango, the head of refugee repatriation at Rwanda’s ministry of local government said.
The refugees are mainly ethnic Hutus whose repatriation has since June been implemented by the Ugandan and Rwandan governments, with the support of the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.
“We have agreed that it is the right time for the Rwandan refugees to take advantage of the improved situation in their country to return home,” Stefano Severe, UNHCR representative in Uganda said.
In the past two months, however, only 3.000 have returned home out of 17.000, some out of fear of possible persecution back home.
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