Inside the Rwanda refugee camp where people were forced to flee as rebel groups ravage their homeland
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 and Mutwarutwa
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.
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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.
Corn is on the menu
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.
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
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Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
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Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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