- Title: KENYA: TUTSI REFUGEES RETURNED TO RWANDA
- Date: 23rd May 1995
- Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (MAY 23, 1995) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. SV UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES (UNHCR) OFFICE IN NAIROBI 0.07 2. SV CHILDREN PLAYING AMIDST LUGGAGE WHILE WAITING FOR BUS 0.13 3. SV VARIOUS OF REFUGEES AND LUGGAGE 0.25 4. SV REFUGEES PREPARING TO BOARD BUSES 0.34 5. SV NAMES OF REFUGEES BEING READ OUT 0.4
- Embargoed: 7th June 1995 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NAIROBI, KENYA
- City:
- Country: Kenya
- Reuters ID: LVABFX9FM6JA77B5KX6KJLX62S4T
- Story Text: About 100 mainly Tutsi refugees from Rwanda were returned to their homeland on Tuesday (May 23) even though they have spent most or all of their lives living in Kenya.
The repatriation operation by officers of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) involved people who fled Rwanda after massacres by Hutus in 1958. Many of those settled in Uganda, but others kept moving to seek refuge in Kenya.
Peter Kessler, an information officer with UNHCR, said hundreds of such refugees had already returned to Rwanda by their own means but a group contacted the relief agency with a request to help them return to Rwanda.
Yet those who return are expected to find life difficult after so many years away. Most of them no longer speak their mother tongue and have married local Kenyans. Their children have no knowledge of Rwanda and have gone to Kenyan schools.
The group travelled by bus from the UNHCR office in Nairobi to the airport where they boarded a specially chartered Boeing 707 to the Rwandan capital Kigali.
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