REFUGEES FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION UNHCR, APRIL 2023 Congolese refugees in Rwanda As of end of May 2021, Rwanda hosted a total of 127,557 registered refugees, of whom 77,887 (61 percent) were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and almost all the remainder from Burundi. The Congolese refugees are largely speakers of Kinyarwanda who fled the violence that erupted in North Kivu province in the aftermath of the genocide against the Rwandan Tutsi, especially in 1995–97. 96 There was an additional influx from North Kivu during renewed violent clashes in 2012 – 2014 between rebels and Congolese government forces. Just under 12,000 of the Congolese refugees arrived in Rwanda more than 20 years ago; an additional 34,000 refugees have spent between 10-25 years in Rwanda. 97 Refugees in Rwanda are hosted in five refugee camps. About 9 percent of the total refugee population is not hosted in camps, including around 1,500 Congolese registered in urban areas. With the exception of the small number of urban families, the vast majority of Congolese refugees in Rwanda have spent their lives in camps where they are almost entirely dependent upon humanitarian assistance. The Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework adopted by Rwanda and UNHCR in February 2018 envisages access by Congolese refugees to all durable solutions—voluntary return, resettlement, and local integration (including plans to promote economic integration). In accordance with the CRRF, the UNHCR Rwanda office in 2018 jointly conducted with the Government a verification exercise for all refugees in the country, in order to enable the Government to issue all refugees over age 16 with a refugee identity card. UNHCR and the government of Rwanda have since further addressed the issue of documentation, through biometric capture/verification missions and are working on a possible integration between national systems and UNHCR database to close the remaining gap in issuance of identity documents and related issues. There have in the past been efforts to repatriate Congolese refugees in Rwanda to DRC, including by the tripartite agreement signed in early 2010 between UNHCR and the governments of DRC and Rwanda. However, UNHCR no longer promotes repatriation, due to ongoing tensions in DRC about the identification of those who should be able to return, and continued insecurity in North and South Kivu. 98 Since 2020 UNHCR, through the Ministry in Charge of Emergency Management (MINEMA), has received around 660 applications for voluntary cessation of refugee status in Rwanda. Lack of coordination in this process could create risks of statelessness, if nationality is not confirmed or Rwandan nationality not granted. In Rwanda, the long-term refugees researched for this study were all camp-based, from a total population of 6,500 refugee households in Kiziba and Mahama refugee camps in the latter, refugees relocated from Gihembe camp were interviewed. A sample of 377 households were surveyed, 201 in Kiziba camp and 176 in Mahama, and in each case the head of the household was interviewed. More than 90 percent of the refugees interviewed had arrived in Rwanda before 2000, just under two percent had arrived between 2001 and 2005, and 7 percent had been born in Rwanda. Focus group discussions were carried out in each case with refugee camp leaders, women representatives born in DRC and born in Rwanda, youth representatives born in DRC and born in Rwanda, and the host communities (18 in total). 96 For further background on Congolese refugees see ’Congolese refugees: A protracted situation’, UNHCR 2014, https://www.unhcr.org/afr/558c0e039.pdf. 97 According to UNHCR surveys. 98 International Crisis Group, Five Priorities for a Peacebuilding Strategy, Africa Report No. 150, 11 May 2009 https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/democratic-republic-congo/congo-five-priorities-peacebuildingstrategy ; Eastern Congo: Why Stabilisation Failed, Africa Briefing No. 91, 4 October 2012 https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/democratic-republic-congo/eastern-congo-why-stabilisationfailed ; International Refugee Rights Initiative, Shadows of Return: The Dilemmas of Congolese Refugees in Rwanda, July 2011 http://www.refugee-rights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Shadows-of-Return.pdf. 40