Inside the Rwanda refugee camp where people were forced to flee as rebel groups ravage their homeland

Published

2 years ago

December 23, 2023

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Congolese men, women, and children are fleeing ethnic violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as tensions soar between two neighbouring governments.

Rwanda stands accused of supporting the M23 rebels fighting against the forces of DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, who recently likened Rwandan president Paul Kagame to Adolf Hitler at a campaign rally preceding his 20 December presidential election run.

A historic transit camp for Congolese refugees was forced to reopen earlier this year to accommodate the influx of civilians fleeing heightened violence in eastern DRC.

The Nkamira Transit Camp is currently brimming with Tutsi men, women, and children who escaped targeted ethnic assaults by militants belonging to the dozens of different rebel groups ravaging their homeland.

Sixty-year-old Mutwarutwa arrived here at the end of November. She fled her home with nothing but the clothes on her back as Mayi Mayi rebels attacked her village.

“One day I was at home and we were told that there was going to be an attack. We decided to run and then suddenly bombs were falling and guns attacking us. We had to leave with absolutely nothing,” she says.

“We did not have money to get on a motorbike so we decided to run and hide in the forest. Eventually we made our way here.”

Mutwarutwa is not alone. 450,000 people were displaced by violence in eastern DRC’s North Kivu province in just the six weeks of October to late November.

Only 20km from the Goma-Gisenyi crossing straddling North Kivu, Nkamira is the first stop for many of them fleeing to Rwanda. In November, the camp was receiving around 200 new arrivals a day.

Angelique is sat next to Mutwarutwa on a blue mat covering the hard ground. This tented allotment has been her home since she fled North Kivu with her children and husband in February.

Angelique’s husband was killed as they made their way out of danger and she says her father, who stayed behind, is currently in hiding from the rebels.

“We look different so we are hated and just killed. We were told that, as Tutsis, we would be targeted again and again until we leave,” Angelique tells us with a painfully resigned look in her eye.

She describes her body aches from months of sleeping on the hard floor.

“Back home, we had beds and mattresses and everything,” says Angelique.

“But at least here we can sleep,” quips Mutwarutwa. The terror kept them awake long before the attack finally came.

They both say they want to return home to DRC once there is peace. In Rwanda, they have safety but little else.

Money for mattresses, soap and sanitary pads dried up in July.

The UN Refugee (UNHCR) Appeal for Rwanda was only 38% funded this year – the worst deficit in recent times.

In Nkamira’s kitchen, pots that once made carrots, cabbage, spinach, and rice are now only serving a meal of corn and beans.

At the medical clinic, sick toddlers with chest infections are given paracetamol.

In Kigali, UNHCR Rwanda spokesperson Lilly Carlisle tells us the cuts have been expansive.

“We have had to limit access to health care. We have had to cut our cash assistance programmes for non-food items, which are things like soap, household goods and sanitary pads for women,” she says.

We speak to her as the UK-Rwanda treaty is being finalised. A £240 million deal to bring in deported asylum-seekers from the UK that the UNHCR has taken a firm stand against.

I ask Lilly what it is like to witness so much money paid for people who are yet to arrive and do not want to be here.

“It is on us as the international community to continue to support the existing refugee population here in Rwanda.

“They’ve been here for many years but that doesn’t mean that their needs are any less valid,” she responds.

World

What’s it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

Published

7 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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What's it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

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What’s it like on the streets of DC right now, as thousands of federal police patrol the streets?

Who is Steve Witkoff, the US envoy regularly meeting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to broker peace in Ukraine and Gaza?

And why is Californian Governor Gavin Newsom now tweeting like Donald Trump?

Martha Kelner and Mark Stone answer your questions.

If you’ve also got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

World

It’s been a confusing week – and Trump’s been made to look weak

Published

7 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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It’s been a confusing week.

The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.

Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack

The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.

The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.

Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.

Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.

Russia gives two fingers to the president

And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.

“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.

Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.

It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.

The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.

Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.

It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.

NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.

European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”

The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.

Would Trump threaten force?

The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.

The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.

Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.

Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.

A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.

Image and reality don’t seem to match

Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.

He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.

That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.

The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.

World

At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

Published

7 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.

Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.

Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who are FARC, and are they still active?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.

According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.

Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.