Government starts Assessment on houses of Genocide survivors

Social welfare office in Nyaruguru is set to do a checkup on houses built in 1995 and 2008 for Genocide survivors and vulnerable groups to establish their current state and refurbish them, if need arise .

The four-day operation will be conducted across Nyaruguru’s 14 sectors, where over 2, 500 houses are to be under thorough scrutiny.

“Those [houses] that are really down, we have to rebuild them”, said Maureen Murebwayire, social welfare officer in Nyaruguru district.

The move follows a letter dated this May 2012, referring to conclusions of the Rwandan Parliament, the Chamber of Senate. The very letter, signed off by Local Government Minister, James Musoni, tasks grassroots leaders with doing a “check on houses built for Genocide survivors and vulnerable groups whose houses were built in 2008 in the ministry’s assistance programme to vulnerable people”.

Houses built for Genocide survivors in 1995 and in the late 1990s are also high on the checking agenda.

The vulnerable people include those who were relocated in new houses after their traditional grass-thatched houses (locally known as Nyakatsi) were destroyed, and those who are said to have been left behind by the history, among others.

Some Genocide survivors are happy with the exercise. One such person is Théogène Gatete, 23, whose mother and three siblings live at Nyarusovu, a grouped habitat in Kibeho sector on the outskirts of Nyaruguru district’s headquarters, South of Rwanda.

“Can you imagine a house whose tile roof has not yet been replaced since 1998 and yet the house is being used for the kitchen at the same time? This check is really worth it”, said Gatete.

The checking exercise is meant to be conducted jointly with police and army personnel operating in the district, with the assistance of grassroots leaders.