23 août 2013

HUMANITARIAN ISSUE : SOS FOR RWANDAN EXPELLED FROM TANZANIA

The rain period is started in Rwanda and it is the very hard time for all displaced people. Today Rwanda is straggling to welcome and resettle its people expelled recently from Tanzania and to take care of more than one hundred thousands of Congolese refugees.

FSDS is calling (from individual, NGOs, Churches, Embassies, etc.) for especial and urgent material and moral assistance for recent Rwandans expelled from Tanzania according to its Head of State’s decision to reshuffle all Rwandans living illegally in Tanzania. A 14 days ultimatum was given to Rwandans to leave Tanzanian soil. The instructions relating to this decision were given not only to local authorities but also to the Tanzanian People’s Defense Forces and have produced panic and traumatism among Rwandan living in Tanzania.

More than 1500 Rwandans, mainly pastoralists who were living in Ngara district, Kagera Region in the northwest of Tanzania, have already crossed into Rwanda following the expiry of a two-week July 29 ultimatum issued. They are now installed temporarily in Kirehe District, waiting to be resettled or to join their families.

This is the third time for Tanzania to expel Rwandan people form its soil. In 2000, 2006 and now in 2013, thousands of people are expelled unexpectedly with some of their cattle.

We hereby call for Rwandan authorities to talk to Tanzanian authorities to solve this situation and the impasse relating to the properties of those Rwandans reshuffled.
Only honest talks could improve the present “soured relations” between Rwanda and Tanzania caused by the controversial remarks made by President KIKWETE asking Kigali to get negotiation with FDLR, genocidal force that has for the past 19 years been operating from the jungles of eastern DRC.

EAC (East African Community) could facilitate to solve such kind of 1994 Rwandan Refugees problems between its country members otherwise it will lose its credibility and reason of being.

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