Rwanda: reunited after 12 years
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Wednesday 7 March 2007 is a day 14-year-old Ndayisenga will remember for the rest of her life. It was the day she saw her family again after twelve years
of separation
She had lost trace of them while living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before the ICRC repatriated her to Rwanda.
Back in her home country, she spent five years in a centre for unaccompanied children in Muhanga, Sud province, before moving in with a family in the district of Kamonyi.
Ndayisenga is one of 300 children for whom the ICRC broadcast information on local radio stations in an effort to help them trace their families.
Often, the children have no idea where their families are living, and it proves impossible to find them, even after ten years of searching.
Ndayisenga’s mother: “As soon as I heard the announcement on Radio Rwanda, I contacted the ICRC’s offices in Kamembe, to see if they really were talking about my daughter.
And they were!” This campaign has reunited over 30 children with their families.
In 2006, 93 Rwandan children found their families again, 25 of them via the regular announcements broadcast on the radio stations with which the ICRC is working.
The information is broadcast every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 16.05 hrs, just after the news.
Radio Rwanda is on shortwave (in the 49 m band) and on FM (89.9 MHz, 99.3 MHz and 100.4 MHz).
For further information, please contact: Inah Kaloga, ICRC Kigali, tel: +250 577344 or +250 0830 5069 Anna Schaaf, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 22 730 22 71 or +41 79 217 32 17
See also ICRC media contacts
This article on www.icrc.org
She had lost trace of them while living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before the ICRC repatriated her to Rwanda.
Back in her home country, she spent five years in a centre for unaccompanied children in Muhanga, Sud province, before moving in with a family in the district of Kamonyi.
Ndayisenga is one of 300 children for whom the ICRC broadcast information on local radio stations in an effort to help them trace their families.
Often, the children have no idea where their families are living, and it proves impossible to find them, even after ten years of searching.
Ndayisenga’s mother: “As soon as I heard the announcement on Radio Rwanda, I contacted the ICRC’s offices in Kamembe, to see if they really were talking about my daughter.
And they were!” This campaign has reunited over 30 children with their families.
In 2006, 93 Rwandan children found their families again, 25 of them via the regular announcements broadcast on the radio stations with which the ICRC is working.
The information is broadcast every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 16.05 hrs, just after the news.
Radio Rwanda is on shortwave (in the 49 m band) and on FM (89.9 MHz, 99.3 MHz and 100.4 MHz).
For further information, please contact: Inah Kaloga, ICRC Kigali, tel: +250 577344 or +250 0830 5069 Anna Schaaf, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 22 730 22 71 or +41 79 217 32 17
See also ICRC media contacts
This article on www.icrc.org
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
