Skip to main content
At the village of Biaro. The Zairian Red Cross are present (brought here by the rebels of Kabila, who want to make sure the bodies are burried as fast as possible, fearing typhus epidemic) and make a count of all the orphans: above 1000 children. They are lined up along the railway tracks.Tens of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees, (they all come from the refugee camps of Goma and Bukavu), fleeing the Zairian rebels of Laurent- Desire Kabila, for the last 5 months, hiding in the bush, exhausted, famished, and all waiting to return home, to Rwanda, are today in the midst of a new nightmare. They had taken residence in camps in 1994, when they fled their country in fear of retribution for the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsi by Hutu extremists. The presence of Hutu nettled Zairian Tutsi, who joined forces with Kabila, a longtime Mobutu foe, and  launched the insurgency. The fighting forced most of the Rwandan refugees to go home in Autumn 96, but about 350.000 of them have been marooned in tough eastern Zaire, fighting terrain. They are dying at an alarming rate. They need food, water ans safe passage home. But no one has made the refugees a priority. The Zairian rebels of Kabila who seized Kisangani, Zaire'sthird city, had ordered the Rwandan Hutu Refugees, who were in this region's camps, to move back south.
MSF Speaking Out

The Hunting and Killing of Rwandan Refugees in Zaire-Congo: 1996-1997

Tens of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees, (they all come from the refugee camps of Goma and Bukavu), fleeing the Zairian rebels of Laurent- Desire Kabila, for the last 5 months, hiding in the bush, exhausted, famished, and all waiting to return home, to Rwanda, are in the midst of a new nightmare.
© Sebastiao Salgado
Ebola disease in DRC: find out how we're responding
Learn more

All Speaking Out Case Studies > The Hunting and Killing of Rwandan Refugees in Zaire-Congo

The ‘Hunting and Killings of the Rwandan refugee in Zaire/Congo’ case study describes the constraints, questions and dilemmas faced by Médecins Sans Frontières’ teams in 1996 and 1997 as they attempted to bring assistance to the Rwandan refugees in Eastern Zaire, after their camps had been attacked by the rebel forces supported by the Rwandan army.

Questions and dilemmas:

  • Is it possible for MSF to publicly extrapolate from the little known conditions of refugees and their health needs despite the fact that it had no access to them
  • Conversely, given lack of access, should MSF refrain from making predictions?
  • Is it wise for a humanitarian organisation to predict the worst?
  • Its team being used to lure refugees from hiding, should MSF cease activities in the area or pursue them, condemning manipulation in the hope of preventing massacres – but at the risk of endangering its teams and other operations in the region?
  • Should MSF call for the refugees to remain in eastern Zaire, knowing they would face deadly dangers, or participate in their forced repatriation to Rwanda, where their security was not guaranteed either?

Download the case study

Additional materials

MAP MSF Programmes for Rwandan Refugees in Zaire-DRC and Congo Brazzaville, 1996-1997
MSF Programmes for Rwandan Refugees in Zaire-DRC and Congo Brazzaville, 1996-1997
soundcloud.com

This podcast is adapted from the case study “The Hunting and Killing of Rwandan Refugees in Zaire-Congo. 1996-1997". In 8 episodes, it investigates MSF's experience in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi genocide, and in particular, with the impact on local populations and refugees living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).
The series expresses on the constraints, questions, and dilemmas faced by MSF teams attempting to bring relief to Rwandan refugees and local populations.

Listen to the first episode
Related