40 Rwandan rebels return home
2010-08-20 14:33
Kigali - About 40 Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) returned home voluntarily from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said on Friday.
The former rebels, who included eight captains and two lieutenants, arrived on Thursday at Kigali airport, Radio Rwanda reported. The group was accompanied by six women and nine children, the families of some of the fighters.
"We are delighted because our wish is that all Rwandans return home," said the president of the national commission for demobilisation and reintegration, Jean Sayinzoga, speaking on the radio.
He said that those who returned came from Katanga province in the southeast of the DRC, where they had fallen back from the FDLR's principal bases in Nord-Kivu province, which borders on Rwanda.
One of the repatriated rebels, Irankunda Nshimiyimana, said on Radio Rwanda that they had been "taken hostage by the commanders. To escape their vigilance, we needed to leave the camps at night, in little groups."
Sayinzoga told the pro-governmental New Times that there are still about 3 000 FDLR fighters in Nord- and Sud-Kivu provinces. Some of the oldest of them are accused of taking part in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when an estimated 800 000 people were killed, mainly minority Tutsis.
The FDLR is considered one of the main sources of instability in the east of the DRC, where several armed groups are still active. The rebels have been targeted by the Rwandan army in joint operations with the DRC army, which continues to track them.
- SAPA