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Zambia
Egide, his wife Felicite and three children were forced to leave their village in the eastern region of Burundi, in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, in June 1997 because of continued skirmishes between rebel Hutu insurgents and the Burundian Tutsi-dominated army. They took with them only three small bags containing a few clothes, and some US dollars. After some days trekking through the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo they came across a larger group of refugees, but tragically were attacked by some marauding militia, and in the panic that followed Egide, who was then with the children, was separated from Felicite who has not been heard of since.
The father and three children were able with the help of friendly villagers to find their way to Lake Tanganyika, from there to Zambia, and eventually to arrive in the large refugee settlement of Meheba. Zambia, like other Southern African countries, has chosen rural refugee settlements as the solution to accommodating large numbers of refugees. The rural settlements are isolated from the main towns, easy to control, and NGOs like the Lutheran World Federation and Care International provide the needed infrastructure of roads, boreholes, schools and clinics. Refugees are expected to work as subsistence farmers, and after two years to be able to feed themselves and their families.
But for Egide, this was a hardship. By profession he is a secondary school teacher, and he found hoeing the soil day by day excessively frustrating. It did not bring in enough income to help his children to have adequate food, or to provide school requirements and health needs in a malaria-prone area. He had made a house from branches and grass, but it leaked badly in the rainy season, and had to be renewed from time to time. Above all, in that remote place he had little news of the outside world, and had no means of finding out if Felicite was still alive.
After a year of subsistence farming, Egide moved again with his three children to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, and is now making a living for himself by running a small shop from a rented container near the city centre. With only 480,000 people in formal employment in a country of nine million people, there is no chance of his being employed as a foreigner. From his small shop he can earn in a month enough to pay his rent, enjoy a reasonable diet, and keep his children in school. He has joined the local Roman Catholic small Christian community where he has been made to feel welcome, his children sing in the church choir, and he enjoys being part of a Burundian drumming group. The Burundian refugees in Lusaka are well organised, unlike in the Meheba Settlement, and students and adults meet in groups from time to time to discuss common concerns and their hopes for the future.
Numbers of Burundians families, together with refugees from the DR Congo and Rwanda, have been resettled in Canada and the United States, but Egide has not applied for resettlement, as he still hopes to get news of his wife. His main problem is that he has no work permit necessary for a refugee to work in Lusaka. Zambia has in the past welcomed urban refugees, but with its deteriorating economy, now puts severe restrictions on them by demanding they invest substantially in the Zambian economy to qualify for a work permit, which for Egide is quite impossible. The consequence is he can be arrested at any time and imprisoned pending forced return to Meheba. Like his fellow refugees in Lusaka, Egide is prepared to take the risk of keeping on working.
He still hopes that he may find his wife. In the meantime his main concern is his three children. As their mother tongue is Kirundi and second language French, they are having to learn English, and study in a foreign language, but are doing well in school with the extra lessons he gives them at home. Margarite is 16 and Egide worries about her future. He is happy that all three children have lessons on HIV/AIDS in school, especially as the Lusaka HIV infection rate is high. Egide will try to ensure that his children feel secure at home even if they know they will always be regarded as refugees, and never be able to assimilate into Zambia as citizens. He is glad still to be alive, and along with other refugees from the Great Lakes region, waits for the time when he and his family may return home in peace.
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