By Ignatius Bahizi – East Africa Editor, The African Gazette
Located in a valley surrounded by gentle slopes, Nakivale has been home to hundreds of thousands of distressed populations fleeing successive conflicts from the countries of the Great Lakes Region, and the Horn of Africa for the past 60 years.
Some of the people that Nakivale refugee settlement has nurtured, and given another lease of life have gone on to become influential figures in politics, business, and social life across Africa. Others have benefited from UNHCR resettlement programs and are living in Europe and America.
However, Nakivale has remained the same. A dusty and bumpy road that links the refugee settlement to the rest of Uganda still snakes through several villages of refugees and nationals who have built small towns along the road.
As you descend into the valley, the banana plantations and farms cultivated by refugees and the smiles of their children grazing by the road will greet you. The harmonious existence, typical of any Ugandan village, masks the trauma that has shaped the lives of most of the people living here.
Every few minutes on the road, you will find four-wheel drives belonging to dozens of NGOs overtaking you. These vehicles belong to people working with the refugee populations and they drive at break-neck speed, leaving behind a cloud of dust in their wake, and you are forced to stop for the dust to settle before driving on.
Even with the semi-desert climate and the resulting acute water shortage, Nakivale settlement has trudged on. Fifty years after it welcomed the first Rwandan refugees fleeing from a monarchy upheaval, over 140.000 people call it their home today. Currently, Nakivale shelters refugees from 13 countries including most of Uganda’s neighbors.
NAKIVALE CHILDREN SPREAD ACROSS THE WORLD
The word Nakivale evokes memories for a multitude of nationalities either who spent a significant part of their lives there or whose loved ones were impacted by the refugee settlement. For instance, it has been a crucial tracing point for many families separated, as they fled the horror of civil war and political turmoil.
Many refugees who formerly called Nakivale home still maintain contact with kith and kin living here. Some have made the area an even more permanent home, having lived here for decades. Ugandan laws do not allow the naturalization of refugees or their descendants, but the rules are not strictly enforced.
INFLUENCE ON REGIONAL POLITICS
Nakivale refugee settlement has also played a big role in the politics of the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Many plans aimed at causing political changes in some countries in the region were hatched here. The settlement has also acted as a breeding ground for refugee warriors who later returned to their countries of birth to take part in liberation struggles.
Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo for instance cannot ignore the role Nakivale has played in shaping their current political situations, so much, so that it has become a target area for spy agents. The leadership in these countries appreciates the kinds of ideas that brew among the refugee population and how far-reaching they can be.
NAKIVALE AS A BUSINESS AND AGRICULTURAL HUB
The idea of a refugee settlement, and not a camp might sound alien to many. The Ugandan government’s refugee policy allows freedom of movement, the right to work or do business, and where possible, provision of land for agriculture. This is opposed to the encampment of refugees and sole dependency on aid as practiced in other countries.
The settlement of Nakivale sits on over 71,000 square miles, and many refugees are able to engage in agriculture. The area is popular for producing large quantities of beans and maize, and some refugees own hundreds of heads of livestock.
“We do business like any other Ugandan, we have a lot of produce and rear cattle, some refugees improved their lives through trading. Some own cars and big trucks to transport our produce to bigger markets; people come from neighboring countries like Kenya and Tanzania to trade with us.” Felicien Habumugisha a refugee from Burundi proudly told this writer.
Base camp is the nerve center of the settlement; government and NGO offices, recreational facilities like playgrounds, clubs, lodges, and bars dominate the area.
Dusty streets crisscross the settlement, which bustles with roadside retail businesses like grocery shops, wholesale stores, hair salons, fresh food markets, and secondhand clothes’ stalls.
Different zones in the settlement have names after the countries their residents are from – New Congo, which is the biggest fresh foods market, refugees who formerly lived in the Rwanda’s capital populate Kigali, and those who fled the 2015 unrest in Burundi live in what is called New Bujumbura (New Buja, for short).
BOOSTING UGANDA’S ECONOMY
Refugees should not be seen as a burden; David Mugenyi the settlement commandant says. “They contribute to the national economy, work hard and they pay taxes like any other Ugandan,” he adds.
Shops sell Ugandan-made products, and the business environment has even attracted several banks to set up shop in the settlement, including the biggest one in the country. The financial sector has contributed to the refugees further bettering themselves by providing credit, which they invest in agriculture and other businesses.
Thousands of Ugandans and foreigners work for the dozens of NGOs operating here and the aid agencies have made investments in social services infrastructure such as schools and health facilities.
LITTLE HOPE OF EVER RETURNING HOME
Uganda is currently the third-largest host of refugees in the world, and the largest on the African continent hosting more than 1.4 million refugees according to UNHCR statistics.
Many refugees have little hope of ever returning to their home countries. Some have been refugees for up to 30 years, and for hundreds of children born here, Nakivale is the only home they have ever known.
Emmanuel Hakizimana’s family, for instance, fled Rwanda when he was aged seven. Now twenty-seven, he says that Nakivale is all he knows as home, and even if conditions were to become favorable back home, he thinks it would be difficult to start life again in a country that is foreign to him.
Some refugees have set their sights on resettlement in third countries, as possibilities for opportunities and a new life.
Nakivale refugee settlement is an example of how much a community can do for those who have suffered untold trauma. Refugees and the local community have shared land, wells, done business together, and even intermarried. Although UN regulations provide for repatriation, resettlement or integration as permanent solutions to being a refugee, for some of those living here – their bond to Nakivale will probably never be broken.
Ignatius Bahizi – Currently East Africa Editor of The African Gazette, he is a journalist of repute and an analyst of geopolitics and security of the Great lakes region of Africa. Ignatius has worked in the region for over ten years with different local and international media houses.
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