By ARI-RNA
Tuesday, 08 July 2008

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Kigali: A government census for survivors of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide now puts the number of survivors at 309,368, RNA can exclusively reveal.
Among them, according to the study due to be released, women make up the largest portion at 58% with men counting 42 percent. This is the second census after flaws were discovered in the previous one – where some of the known survivors were not part of the final tallies.

A similar study for victims of the 100-day carnage that has not been made public puts the number of those killed at slightly above a million people.

The new census done by the Rwanda National Institute of Statistics in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government says orphans represent some 21% along with 10.3 percent widows.

The handicapped – some of whose limbs were brutally maimed by the militias that wanted them dead – account for just 7.3 percent of the total population.

In relations to their age, those between 13 and 35 years forms the biggest block at 66 percent of the total number. Among those between ages 13 and 20, 46 percent are males compared to 54 % as females.

Indicative of the challenges that the survivors have to live-by to make ends meet, the census says 7 in 10 are dependants.

Among the few that have an employment, 7 in 10 survivors earn a monthly average income of less than Rwf 5000 ($8). One in 10 is earning between Rwf 5000 and 10,000. Just 9 percent are getting between Rwf 10,000 and 50,000 ($90) – with similar figures showing just 4% earning more than Rwf 50,000.

The figures also show that most of the Genocide survivors have not had education or are just struggling to even be in school.

Faced with such grim figures of how terribly the Genocide survivors are living, government says the census should be the basis to put up programs aimed at supporting them.

There is already a government Fund that supports them but there have been concerns raised as whether it is actually working by its mandate. Hundreds of NGOs have also been recorded as supporting the survivors but the supposed beneficiaries have often cried fowl.

The Aegis Trust – that is managing the Kigali memorial center is to build $3 million (about Rwf 1.6 billion) hostel for the most vulnerable survivors. This is in addition to local government programs providing housing for them.

Land for the 600-place hostel has already been secured on a three-and-half acre in Kigali. Aegis Trust manages the center which is home to remains of some 250,000 victims of the mass slaughter.

The survivors have also demanded for compensation to no avail. More than a decade after the Genocide, the need for compensation to victims continues to present difficulties for government and Genocide survivors alike.

With an UN court that has tried – since 1995 – just up to 30 perpetrators of the killings at a cost $1.5 billion, survivors remain bitter that those that wanted them for dead are having it fine with world class facilities in their cells, as the victims languish in ardent poverty.

Last year, controversy ensued between the office of the UN Secretary General in New York and the Tanzania-based UN court for Rwanda over a supposed Fund for Genocide victims. The Office of the Secretary General told a visiting delegation of Genocide survivors that there was a Fund at the court but that was refuted by the Tribunal.

From the new census, Gasabo district (Kigali) has the biggest number of survivors along with Rusizi district – in Western Rwanda. Burera in Northern Rwanda is said to be having the least number of survivors.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 08 July 2008 )