Rwanda | Nyaruguru district: 43 families of Genocide survivors to get new houses by August

43 houses in Kibeho sector of Nyaruguru district, Southern Rwanda, are getting ready for grabs to 43 families of survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi not later than the upcoming month of August, this news website has learnt without a shadow of doubt.

According to Angélique Nireberaho, Nyaruguru’s Deputy Mayor in charge of social affairs, each of the three-roomed houses − with a cemented floor, a sitting-room and, separately, a shower, a toilet and a kitchen – has now reached its finishing phase.

The houses – worth Rwf 2,5 million each – are primarily meant for vulnerable Genocide survivors who, just in the direct aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, have been renting makeshift shelters at Matyazo in Ngoma sector, a suburb of the neighbouring town district of Huye, after their houses had been burnt down during the Genocide.

“The upcoming general population and housing census will find them [that group of needy Genocide survivors] in their new houses”, said Deputy Mayor Nireberaho, alluding to Rwanda’s fourth general population and housing census slated from August 16 up to August 30, 2012.

“Houses are now in their completion phase”, she added.

And the news has echoed among recipients.

54-year-old Innocent Nyirimanzi is now a “very happy” man, having heard from Nyaruguru district officials that he will, in August, join his birthplace, 18 years after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

“I am very happy now”, Nyirimanzi tells me, unable to contain his smile. “Knowing that I will get a new house next month, it’s as if God has descended all the way from Heaven to stand up in front of me”, said a composed Nyirimanzi.

A father to three (a girl and two boys) – dressed in a short-sleeved faded purple shirt, faded khaki trousers and plastic slippers, Nyirimanzi and his family were compelled to flee to Mureke refugee camp in neighbouring Burundi’s Ngozi province to escape from the Genocide killings.

Back to his homeland in August 1994 (a month after the RPF army had halted the Genocide), Nyirimanzi has been renting poor shelters in Matyazo – currently sheltering in a fourth shelter after his three previous land-lords chased him, having been unable to pay the rent on a regular basis.

Today, Nyirimanzi − a widower since 2009 – lives in a leaking one-roomed house at Matyazo in Ngoma sector, paying the rent Rwf 3,000 (about 5$) per month, money he mainly earns from cultivating land for wealthy neighbours – getting an estimated Rwf 8,00 (less than 2$) per day, which he spends on food and savings for rent payment at the end of the month.

The trend is to be reversed though in less than a month ahead, if one goes by both the Nyaruguru district version and the houses’ progress on ground. Something Nyirimanzi views in a positive light and believes will improve his lifestyle.

“Even though I may keep cultivating land for people to get money in return, the money will be sufficing me because I will not be paying rent anymore as I will be having a house of my own”, he said.

An estimated 200 families of Genocide survivors hailing from Nyaruguru district are reportedly living in makeshift shelters at Matyazo, more or less under the same harsh conditions as Nyirimanzi’s.

One such person is the 46-year-old Immaculée Mukankusi, a mother to nine children, living a stone’s throw from Nyirimanzi.

Equally living in a rented, one-roomed house − artificially divided into two rooms using some four cloths attached to a rope held by two nails and linking two walls, Mukankusi says she will be in the second phase of Genocide survivors to get new houses in Nyaruguru and believes her life will change accordingly. But she is rather “happy” for Nyirimanzi to secure a new house soon.

“Getting a house for him [Nyirimanzi], to me it means that in the future when I go to Kibeho [where the new houses are being completed], I can even spend some days there having where to shelter because Nyirimanzi will be having some sympathy for me as he will have lived under the same harsh conditions like me”, Mukankusi said, tightening a cloth holding her baby in her back.

Officials at the Rwanda’s Genocide survivors’ umbrella organisation, IBUKA, acknowledge that it has seemingly taken too long – 18 years to be precise – to fully assist needy Genocide survivors. The country’s special fund to assist needy Genocide survivors, FARG, agrees, too. But both instances concur in saying that with a number of Rwanda’s overriding priorities inherited from the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi – like trying hundreds of thousands of alleged culprits and trying to reconcile and unite Rwandans once again – it was somewhat impossible for the Rwandan government to do more than devoting 5 per cent of its annual budget to assisting Genocide survivors in general through, among others, school fees, healthcare and building houses for the most needy of them across the country.

The 43 houses to be inaugurated in Kibeho sector come August, have been built thanks to funds from Nyaruguru district in collaboration with FARG.