Your Excellency Secretary-General António Guterres,
Under a scorching sun on a Tuesday afternoon in October 2009, I followed you with a recorder as you walked through the narrow, red-earth paths of the Nyabiheke Refugee Camp in Gatsibo District, Eastern Rwanda.
I was the journalist documenting your every word. You were the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. A man who looked into the weary eyes of the Congolese refugees at the camp and offered them a bridge back to their souls.
I remember clearly when you told those families that although you had never experienced the life of a refugee, you knew the “pain” and the loss of “dignity” it entailed.
You gave them a definitive, public pledge that afternoon: “I have talked to President Joseph Kabila and he assured me that your repatriation will soon be successful.”
Seventeen years have since bled into the soil of that camp. You have ascended to the highest office in the world, yet for the people of Nyabiheke refugee camp, the “soon” you promised has become a life sentence of exile.
Statistics of a stagnant reality
While there are other camps across Rwanda—Kiziba, Kigeme, Mugombwa, Mahama, and the urban settlements—housing thousands of Congolese refugees, my focus remains on Nyabiheke.
It is the place where I stood as a witness to your word, and it is the place where time has been cruelly frozen.
I must remind you, Your Excellency, of the reality on the ground as of April 2026.
Nyabiheke is not a memory. It is a permanent scar. It remains fully operational, housing over 10,000 refugees who continue to wait for a repatriation that has become a myth.
Of this number, Your Excellency, nearly 79% of them are women and children. Many of these children have spent their entire lives—nearly two decades—within the cramped, 35-hectare perimeter of the camp.
They have grown up in the dust of your 2009 visit, knowing the world only through the lens of a “temporary” shelter.
The lethal silence on South Kivu
As these refugees wait in Rwanda, their relatives who remained in South Kivu are being systematically erased.
While you once spoke of “harmony among citizens,” today that land is defined by the hum of drones and the thunder of shellings specifically targeting the Banyamulenge and other Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese.
Your Excellency, how can the UN Secretary-General remain silent while the very people he promised to protect are being decimated by modern, sporadic warfare?
The “immediate repatriation” you spoke of has been replaced by a reality where returning home means returning to a graveyard.
A debt to the record
I still have the notes from that Tuesday afternoon in Nyabiheke. You asked those refugees to be patient while bilateral ties were restored. They have been patient for over 6,000 days.
Your Excellency, I am writing this openly to remind you that a promise made by a High Commissioner does not vanish when he becomes Secretary-General.
The women and children of Nyabiheke are not just “figures” on a humanitarian dashboard; they are the people you looked in the eye and promised a future.
Your Excellency, as the second and your final five-year term is set to expire on December 31, 2026, do not let your legacy be the silence that followed a seventeen-year-old promise.
Respectfully,
Dan Ngabonziza
Journalist and witness to the 2009 Nyabiheke pledge
The Writer, Dan Ngabonziza, is the Managing Director, Kigali Today Ltd, the parent company of KT Press, KT Radio 96.7FM, KigaliToday.com (Kinyarwanda) and Kigali Today TV channel.
