South Sudan: Children bear brunt of man-made disaster

Famine has been staved off for now by the efforts of many agencies and the biggest ever UN humanitarian operation in one country. (AFP)

Water bottle in hand and rucksack on back, his grey trousers rolled up to reveal spindly legs, 12-year-old Gatwech boarded the first flight of his life. His ear protectors dwarfed his head as he gazed wide-eyed through the window of the Russian-built UN helicopter that lifted into the sky, sweeping over lush plains and thick forests.

Gatwech crossed the invisible frontlines separating government and rebel forces in South Sudan’s civil war. Finally, the aircraft came in to land on a ringfenced field in the village of Akobo, deep in opposition territory, and the boy strained to look at the excited crowd waiting under trees. He was about to be reunited with his family for the first time after nine arduous months in a displacement camp.

His best friend beamed, his aunt sang and wept and spat as a blessing, and his uncle gave him a rather formal pat on the head. Gatwech was safe at last. But in the world’s newest and hungriest country, every gain is tentative and every haven fragile. Three days later, there was chaos outside the hospital in Akobo when a cattle thief was bound, chased and whipped by a lynch mob of soldiers, police and vigilantes, including rifle-toting children.

The febrile atmosphere is a sign that the rainy season is coming to an end in South Sudan, raising the prospect of renewed fighting. Aid is working here but diplomacy is not.

Famine has been staved off, at least for now, by the efforts of numerous agencies and the UN’s biggest ever humanitarian operation in one country. Yet bad-tempered peace talks between the warring parties have stalled, agreements have proved hollow and the international community has failed to apply the requisite pressure. The intransigence of two men, President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, is seen by many here as dragging the country towards the abyss.

Thousands have been killed and nearly two million have fled their homes since their war broke out last December. Oxfam and other agencies have warned that an expected upsurge in violence could wipe out recent gains in food security and push the number of severely hungry people up by a million in the first three months of 2015. Describing it as a shift from crisis to catastrophe, they say parts of the country could slide into man-made famine early next year.

A dangerous life
Children, who make up half the population, suffer the most. When the war started, Gatwech – not his real name – ran for his life after government forces attacked the town where his close family was staying. He was carrying a pair of shoes. “I thought my parents were also running,” he recalled, speaking Nuer through an interpreter. “But when I reached the UN camp, they were not there and I thought maybe they were killed. I was very afraid because I heard a lot of gunshots and artillery.”

Nearly 100 000 people are crammed into UN compounds across the country for their own protection, often in inhumane and unsanitary conditions. Gatwech found himself sleeping on a mat on the floor. “I didn’t have anything to do. It was boring. The day was very long,” he said. The boy, who hopes to become a doctor one day, also witnessed attacks on the camp from government troops. “It was a dangerous life. I saw a lot of dead bodies.”

But months later came the news that Gatwech’s parents had been located in Akobo by a family tracing and reunification programme coordinated by Save the Children. It is long, complicated and logistically difficult work: at present 5 660 children have been registered as missing in South Sudan and only 393 reunited with their families. “It’s a needle in a haystack,” one aid worker said.

When Gatwech landed in Akobo last week, his friend Isaac was there to greet him in a crowd of villagers and wandering cows. The 13-year-old said: “I was very happy. I missed him. We weren’t optimistic because we thought in the long run the only way he would come is when there is peace in South Sudan.”

And peace remains a distant prospect, with Kiir and Machar seemingly hellbent on a military solution. Kiir told the UN general assembly last month: “The conflict in South Sudan is purely a political struggle for power, not an ethnic conflict as reported.” Yet violence has broken out along ethnic lines in many parts of the country, pitting forces loyal to Kiir, a Dinka, against those of his former deputy Machar, a Nuer.

Economic self-interest is also fuelling the conflict. A report last month by the Enough Project noted: “The country’s competing privileged elites are sacrificing their own people’s lives to secure the political and economic benefits – including massive state-corroding corruption – derived from control of the state.”

Political and military leaders maintain “lavish homes” in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa and Australia, the report continued. “Families of the leaders of South Sudan’s warring parties are living in neighbouring countries and their children are attending the finest schools available. Meanwhile, the education system back in South Sudan has collapsed.”

Ammunition sources
The Enough Project said the South Sudanese government had received $38-million in weapons and ammunition from China since the start of the civil war, while there is evidence that opposition forces may have been resupplied with ammunition by Sudan, from which the country gained independence in 2011.

Akobo, a remote cluster of tukuls, or mud huts, in Jonglei state, near the Ethiopian border, was the scene of an infamous massacre in 1983. Last December young Nuer men stormed a UN base looking for Dinka civilians sheltering inside and killed two Indian peacekeepers. Since then the village has been overwhelmed by displaced people, putting pressure on food, schools and hospitals, and driving market prices up. Mobile phone networks have been cut off by the government.

Akobo is now firmly controlled by the rebels, who include large chunks of what used to be the national army, and in the central market there is a sense of something approaching normality. But few expect it to last. Koang Rambang, the county commissioner, predicts famine and even genocide. “Akobo is the first town the government are targeting because they consider it a supply route and escape route for the community,” he said. “We’ll do our best to make sure citizens are aware of the threats they are facing.”

Talking into a satellite phone and flanked by soldiers wielding guns, Rambang is now firmly in Machar’s camp because, he says, it is the pragmatic choice. “People call us the rebels but this is the resistance movement to the onslaught, the killings by Salva Kiir. I have no interest in rebelling to go running in the bush for no reason. But if someone wants to kill me because I am Nuer, then I have no choice. I am ready for peaceful solution but if people choose to go forcefully, I am also ready for that.”

In predominantly Dinka areas of South Sudan there are similar accounts of brutal treatment at the hands of the Nuers and hostility towards Machar. In Akobo, it is the Dinka president who is deeply unpopular. Rambang said, “The communities have no trust in Salva Kiir’s leadership. The solution to this crisis is to have Kiir step aside and let some change happen. The other party might want Machar to step aside. I’m sure Machar will compromise because I have spoken to him several times.”

The war has caused a surge in child brides, according to Rambang, with families pushing girls as young as 13 into marriage so they will receive a cattle dowry. But the biggest crisis in Akobo, he says, is food security. Harvests, markets and trade routes have been disrupted. One in three children are acutely malnourished, with consequences including increased vulnerability to malaria and failure to attend school.

Outpatient centres
The village borders a river where children splash and play and climb trees, exotic blue-and-red birds swoop low and lone canoeists gently push through a surface almost as smooth as glass. It takes 45 minutes on a motorboat to reach the village of Dangjok. Here soldiers stand guard, bullet belts around their shoulders, the Nuer initiation pattern of six parallel horizontal scars on their foreheads. The local chief works at a desk in a gloomy corrugated shed where rocket-propelled grenades litter the floor and bats hang from the wood beams.

Save the Children and a local NGO, Nile Hope, are running an outpatient therapeutic centre where, in a modest building of mud walls and thatched roof, malnourished babies are registered, weighed, measured for height and arm circumference and given the peanut-based paste Plumpy’Nut or, in severe cases, referred to hospital for urgent treatment. Right now the preventative measure appears to be working, with hospital admissions down to single figures.

Nellie James, assistant nutrition coordinator at Nile Hope, said some mothers carry their children for two hours to be here. “None of them give up. These mothers are very strong and very determined. Here in Akobo people value children more. A mother can go two days without eating but the child has to eat.”

Among more than 30 mothers waiting their turn last week was Nyanhial Ruot, who fled the city of Malakal nine months ago. She was on the main street when government tanks opened fire. “Children were crying,” she recalled, wearing a rainbow coloured dress, sandals and yellow headscarf patterned with a red rose. “I’ve seen people dying in front of me. Most of them were mothers and children who were not able to run. We turned left and that’s why we’re alive. Those running in front were killed.”

Ruot, 25, and her family trekked for two months to reach Dangjok, but now her four-year-old daughter and two-year-old son are suffering vomiting and diarrhoea. “I’m worried about my children’s lives,” she said. “Before the crisis we got medicine in the market. Now there is none or the prices have gone up.”

A small paracetamol tablet has risen in price from 10 to 25 South Sudanese pounds (roughly $3 to $8), she complained. Food is also scarce. “We have planted some sorghum and maize but there is not enough for the children. In the dry season we collect fruits, grasses and leaves.”

That Ruot and hundreds of mothers like her are receiving help, and that South Sudan is not yet officially in famine is a notable victory for the aid agencies. Ultimately, however, it is only a sticking plaster. One in seven people are still at food crisis or emergency level and 50 000 children could die by the end of the year. All the good work could be undone if Kiir and Machar fail to make peace, or are not compelled to do so. The Enough Project has called for punitive measures including seizing the homes, bank accounts and shell companies of anyone undermining the peace process.

Tariq Reibl, head of Oxfam’s programme in South Sudan, said: “If famine comes to South Sudan it will come through the barrel of a gun. This is a man-made crisis, not one caused by the vagaries of the weather, and though humanitarian aid is vital it cannot fix a political problem.

“The international community is much better at saving lives than it is at helping solve the political problems that put lives in peril. Nine months of the softly-softly approach to peace negotiations has failed. If the international community really wants to avert a famine then it has to make bold diplomatic efforts to bring both sides to end the fighting.”

David Smith for the Guardian Africa Network.

11 years ago

Nigeria’s tech-savvy response to Ebola pays off

(Pic: Reuters)

When an Internet message announcing a salt water solution for Ebola went viral in July, many Nigerians were quick to take heed. Twenty people were hospitalised and two died, reportedly from an excessive intake of salt.

Madam Franca was among those ready to believe in the power of salt water. “My niece, who happens to be a nurse, sent me an SMS that early morning, and I obeyed it,” Franca explained. “I had to do anything to stop Ebola from coming close to me. I bathed with salt water, morning and night for two good days, but I did not drink. I am hypertensive. I also sent all my family and close friends the SMS.”

Nigerians watched with growing unease as the Ebola outbreak spread through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Few believed the creaking health infrastructure or the government’s managerial skills would be able to survive such a test. So when Ebola-positive Liberian Patrick Sawyer stepped off a plane in Lagos airport on 20 July, collapsed and died, social media exploded.

But it was not just the salt water claims and bogus pastors promising salvation that made the running: government agencies and proactive individuals also took to the internet to quickly debunk the rumours and offer proper advice. The authorities also threatened to arrest anyone spreading falsehoods, starting with the salt water “cure”. There was, after all, a plan in place.

A mass audience for messages
At 67 million users, Nigeria reportedly has the eighth largest Internet population in the world. It also had close to 166 million mobile subscribers as ofJune. (The country’s population is 175 million.)

With so many Nigerians online, portals like ebolalert.org set up by volunteer doctors, and the public/private ebolafacts.com initiative, have become important channels to provide accurate information to help people stay safe. They complement telephone hotlines and more traditional public health approaches.

The UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) has also taken a role in the communications work on Ebola, using the SMS portal UReport. UReport Nigeria is a free SMS platform designed as a community-based two-way information exchange mechanism. According to Unicef communications specialist Geoffrey Njoku, over 57 000 people received more than 3.6 million SMSes containing key messages about Ebola and how to stay protected over a six-week period.

Comfort and confidence
For some who have used the service, like Dr Adoara Igonoh, an Ebola survivor, the advice given offered reassurance and quelled fears. “I began to think about my mother,” Igonoh recalled. “She was under surveillance along with my other family members. I was worried. She had touched my sweat. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. Hours later on Twitter I came across a tweet from the WHO [World Health Organisation] saying that the sweat of an Ebola patient cannot transmit it at the late stage [after the incubation period]. That settled it for me. It calmed the storms that were raging within me concerning my parents.”

Nigeria has won praise from the international community for its response to the outbreak. While Ebola continues to burn in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, in Nigeria it appears to have been contained with only 21 confirmed cases and eight deaths – with the last case reported on 8 September and tracing having proven effective.

“A key issue in the fight against Ebola after the provision of the necessary human and technical infrastructure is information management,” said Tochuwu Akunyii, an online writer on public policy and international development. “In information management, the dissemination of accurate information is crucial; social media can be vital in this process.” Akunyii pays particular tribute to Nigerian youth and its use of forums and platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Social media complemented traditional media
Nigerians who do not have access to the Internet and mobile phones have not been left out of the Ebola campaign. Traditional mediums like radio, flyers, posters, village meetings and announcements by town criers are all being used. Priority is given to local languages.

Comparing the traditional methods of campaigning to social media and SMS campaigns, Nwokedi Moses, better known as Big MO, a vernacular language broadcaster with Wazobia FM, said the two approaches worked well together. “The social media Ebola campaign was massive, but it complemented the traditional media. This is due to social media’s limited reach within rural areas.”

Local authorities have also taken the initiative. The Lagos State and Rivers State governments – the only two states where Ebola emerged – incorporated traditional awareness-raising campaigns like road shows, radio and TV jingles, distributing flyers, and educating the public on basic hygiene. Since Ebola first emerged, there has been a roaring trade in hand sanitizers and a corresponding collapse in the “bush meat” market.

As Nigeria gradually returns to normal, signalled by the slightly hesitant reopening of schools on 22 September, health campaigners are moving to tackle the new challenge of ending the stigmatisation of those who have recovered from Ebola – backed by a government warning threatening action against those that discriminate.

Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola recently met survivors to confirm that an Ebola-free certificate means what it says. Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu has declared survivors the “safest people to be around”, given their new immunity to the virus.

11 years ago

Tough sell: Marketing Uganda to gay travellers

(Pic: Reuters)

Uganda is probably the last place a gay holidaymaker would want to visit, but tourism bosses in the east African nation are nevertheless trying to achieve the seemingly impossible.

Earlier this year the country drew international condemnation after passing anti-homosexuality legislation – since struck down – that could have seen gays jailed for life.

Uganda’s tourism representatives and private sector businesses, however, have rallied to assure gay and lesbian travellers that they have nothing to fear.

“No one is actually being killed,” asserted Babra Adoso of the Association of Uganda Tour Operators.

“We are not aware of anybody who has been asked at the airport ‘what is your sexual inclination?’ or been turned away,” she told AFP.

In a move that raised eyebrows, members of the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) and other industry representatives from Uganda met recently with the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), a gay-friendly global travel network.

The September 8 meeting, organised by the Africa Travel Association (ATA) and held at their New York headquarters, came a month after Uganda’s constitutional court struck down the anti-gay legislation on a technicality.

Still, under a standing colonial-era Penal Code, anyone in Uganda – including expatriates and visitors – can in theory still be jailed for “carnal knowledge against the order of nature”. Ugandan MPs are also attempting to reintroduce the tougher bill in parliament.

Two Britons living in Uganda have been deported in the past 18 months for homosexuality-related crimes.

Adoso, however, is adamant that Uganda – known as the “Pearl of Africa” and before the outcry over the law designated by Lonely Planet as a top travel destination – is safe for gays and lesbians and that the country had been “misunderstood”.

The legislation, she said, was for the “protection of children” against paedophiles.

“Children have been recruited into acts,” Adoso said. “We’ve had stories of how children were forcefully taken to Kenya and recruited into the act and forced to actually, you know, pose nude and everything else.”

Gay rights groups, she said, were “possibly using exaggerated stories” about their own predicament in order to get funding from overseas.

Serious image problem
The Ugandan Tourism Board admitted the country was now battling a serious image problem.

Sylvia Kalembe, the UTB’s officer in charge of product development, said she and others who attended the meeting in New York were “in shock at how people perceive us”.

“Someone has turned it around and used it against Uganda,” she said of the international condemnation – which included US Secretary of State John Kerry likening the law to anti-Semitic legislation in Nazi Germany.

John Tanzella, the head of the IGLTA, said the body appreciated being invited to meet with Ugandan authorities, but added that their 90-minute discussion was a “starting point only” – signalling the country still had a way to go if it wanted to attract gay and lesbian tourists.

“As with other destinations that have struggled with issues of homophobia, we advise LGBT travellers to exercise caution if they decide to visit,” he told AFP.

Ugandan gay rights activists are equally sceptical on the initiative, saying the country should first look at how it treats its own citizens who happen to be gay.

“It’s very difficult for us to even move from one town to another,” said activist Pepe Julian Onziema, adding that the pronouncements by Uganda tourism representatives gave the impression there was one law for locals and another for foreigners.

“The freedom has to begin with us,” he said.

Selling Uganda to gays is one of several curious initiatives the Ugandan Tourism Board has come up with this year as it tries to counter a drop in tourism – a key earner for impoverished Uganda that accounts for 8.4 percent of GDP.

In March, Stephen Asiimwe, chief executive of the UTB, announced a plan to create an “Idi Amin Tourism Trail” for those interested in Uganda’s murderous dictator who was ousted in 1979.

“Idi Amin is the most popular Ugandan ever but no one is making use of him. We have to develop this trail,” he was quoted as saying in the New Vision newspaper, saying this could rival other global tragedies-turned-tourist-spots like Holocaust sites in Germany and Poland or the genocide museum in neighbouring Rwanda.

More recently, the UTB has been promoting a Ugandan coming-of-age festival involving the traditional ritual circumcision of boys aged between 13 and 18 years of age.

Amy Fallon for AFP

11 years ago

Travelling with the extra baggage of Ebola stigma

A woman passes a sign posted in an awareness campaign against the spread of Ebola in Freetown, Sierra Leone. (Pic: Reuters)

Upon landing at Kigali International Airport last month, I peered out the window and my eyes caught sight of an official clad in protective gear standing just under a sign that read ‘Arrivals: Ebola testing’. If I had ever been removed from what has been going on in my beloved Sierra Leone, it ended in this moment. Before my flight from Washington, I was informed that we would be screened upon arrival. And there it was. Even from the window of seat 16K, I could see the measures that had been put in place to protect the citizens of the country.

After disembarking the plane and entering the airport, we stood in a queue for about 10 minutes. I noticed a form that other passengers were filling out. I asked the young lady behind me if it was for everyone. She responded “Yes,” so I moved to the counter to complete mine. It asked: “In the past three weeks have you been in the following countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal?” At that moment I felt a sense of solidarity first with Sierra Leoneans near and far, because sadly this too has become one of our realities. I also felt isolation because my entry, identity and existence were being sanctioned and questioned by a customs form. A customs form at which other travellers would not cringe; they don’t have blood from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Even if I don’t explain to you what happened next, you would still be able to surmise what would occur naturally as a Sierra Leonean-American woman with Sierra Leonean entry and departure stamps in her US passport. As I continued filling out the form, I checked “No” on the form because the truth was I hadn’t been to Sierra Leone in the past three weeks.

I calculated: three weeks equals 21 days. Twenty one is the magic number that many African countries and people all over the world will use to promote the stigmatisation of people from Ebola-hit countries, or with any relations to them. It’s the number that would decide your fate when attempting to enter another country. It takes up to 21 days for the deadly Ebola virus to manifest itself in symptoms after one has been exposed. The incubation period, they call it.

No, I haven’t been in Sierra Leone in the past 21 days. Not physically. But in the past 21 days, my thoughts have been there. My mind has raced incessantly and my heart has jumped at the numbers. My soul has cringed at flaws that have been illustrated by this epidemic in Sierra Leone. For more than 21 days, I have certainly felt helpless.

But this customs officer didn’t exactly know how I or other Sierra Leoneans have felt for the past few months. As he attempted to look for a clear page to add the Rwanda entry stamp, he came across my Sierra Leonean visa page. He glanced at my passport and the stamps for my entries to Sierra Leone, the most recent being December 2013 to January 2014. I watched his eyes widen slightly as he turned the pages and I anticipated the questioning. It took a while for him to gather his thoughts and ask the question. “Are you coming from the United States?” Obviously, I thought to myself. “When last have you traveled to Sierra Leone?” Didn’t you already see the stamps? “What was the last date you left Sierra Leone?” I responded “January 10, 2014. And when I left, this wasn’t a problem”.

Some countries have banned the entry of citizens and passengers arriving from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – nations that have been hit the hardest by the latest Ebola outbreak. I understand caution but paranoia and, consequently, stigmatisation, are not the cures to this disease. To see a Sierra Leonean visa in my passport evidently put the official on high alert. The realisation that I could somehow be considered a ‘risk’ – not just to this man but to his country – despite the evidence before him made me feel small.

He stared at me a bit longer, as if trying to gauge whether the words I uttered were the truth. Then he asked me for my point of contact. I gave him that information. He made the decision not to call or do whatever he had considering doing. I smiled because even in the face of this ugly stigma and the horror that we know as Ebola in Sierra Leone, I am still proudly a “Salone Titi.” I thanked him, retrieved my passport, and rolled my hand luggage to begin my experience as a Sierra Leonean-American woman in Rwanda.

Bintu Musa is a globetrotting educator and writer. She is currently lecturing at Rwanda Tourism University College as a Fulbright Scholar. She blogs at Bee’s Backseat.

11 years ago

Rwanda court’s forgotten men pose challenge to international justice

Justin Mugenzi was legally cleared of any role in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. But an oversight in the international justice system means he remains a virtual prisoner in a United Nations safe house in the eastern African state of Tanzania.

“My wife and eight children are all Belgian citizens now,” the 75-year-old former trade minister told Reuters in Dar es Salaam after submitting a third – and unsuccessful – visa application to the Belgian embassy there.

“I have nowhere else to go,” said Mugenzi.

Despite his acquittal last year by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based 650km further north in the city of Arusha, he is too scared to go back to Rwanda, where political rivals now hold sway.

Former Rwandan trade minister Justin Mugenzi. (Pic: Reuters)

The ICTR is scheduled to hand down four more verdicts on Monday, potentially creating more such limbo cases.

The plight of Mugenzi and others like him is a setback to years-long efforts to create a system of international justice by using special courts such as the ICTR – set up to try those accused of carrying out the Rwandan genocide – or permanent tribunals with a more general remit such as the Hague-based International Criminal Court.

Backers say such courts are needed to deal with the world’s worst criminals: perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. But some doubt their legitimacy, pointing to the ICC’s patchy record in securing convictions.

The ICC’s critics say it ignores crimes in the West to focus on Africa. The collapse through lack of evidence this month of the case against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta – accused of stoking ethnic violence after Kenya’s 2007 elections – was a new blow to its credibility after a string of failed prosecutions.

Arrangements exist for witnesses to resettle or for defendants to go to jail in third countries. But when the tribunals were created in the early 1990s, no one imagined that those acquitted would be either unable or unwilling to go home.

International law experts say this snag could further undermine confidence in the courts.

“How can we possibly consider a system to be fair if before the trial, the tribunal makes lots of arrangements about where to put the defendants in jail if they’re convicted but makes no arrangements at all for what’s going to happen to them if they’re acquitted?” said Kevin Heller, Professor of Criminal Law at SOAS, University of London.

Safe house
Like Mugenzi, 10 other individuals acquitted or freed by the ICTR are living in a safe house – in limbo in a country that is not theirs.

“We couldn’t leave these men on Arusha’s sidewalks, with their small suitcases, no pocket money and not the slightest idea of where they would go,” said Pascal Besnier, chief of the judicial and legal affairs section at the ICTR.

But what was intended as a temporary solution when the first acquittal was handed down in 2001 is still in place. Only six men have been resettled – in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. The safe house’s longest-standing resident has been there for over 10 years. This month, an acquitted former general joined his family in Belgium – the first to leave since 2010.

Tanzania tolerates their presence under UN surveillance but other countries are not keen to welcome them. Francehas taken in two and believes others should now step forward.

In the well-appointed safe house in Arusha, where the ICTR’s registrar used to live, acquitted and freed prisoners share meals and do the chores. They are allowed to travel around but they often stay in. “Why would we go to town?” one resident asked. “We can’t work or study.”

Each resident costs $1 500 a month including rent, telephone, cooks, guards and other outgoings. The house, paid for by the United Nations and guarded by Tanzanian police, is almost full even before Monday’s fresh set of verdicts.

In a statement to the ICTR, Kigali said it would welcome the acquitted and respect the ICTR’s verdicts.

“The official position of the Government of Rwanda … is of respect for decisions of courts, including the ICTR, irrespective of whether the Government, Civil Society or any other person or body perceives them to be less than fair”, said the Ministry of Justice.

But after Mugenzi and his family fled Rwanda 20 years ago, he has nothing to return to. He fears for his safety in a land where his acquittal was condemned at public demonstrations.

“They’re very high profile people,” said the ICTR president, Judge Vagn Joensen. “We can’t force them back.”

Some of them have “well-founded fears” of going back, said Human Rights Watch senior Africa researcher Carina Tertsakian, adding that they risked being prosecuted on other charges.

“It may well be that those people have a case to answer but our concern has to do with whether the process of justice would be fair,” she said.

Contacted by Reuters, Rwandan Justice Minister Johnston Busingye denied there would be any attempt to make them face similar charges if they returned.

“I can assure you that nobody would say, ‘Now they have survived conviction for genocide I am going to hit them with genocide denial or ideology or divisionism’ – nobody!” he said.

Anti-immigrant sentiment
Applying for refugee status is a long shot for them. Having been accused of the worst crimes is often enough for an application to be rejected. The Western countries in which they have families are increasingly reluctant to receive them, not least because of a rise of anti-immigrant sentiment that has accompanied Europe’s protracted economic downturn.

“The potential public reaction might be quite an issue,” said Belgian Justice Ministry official Adrien Vernimmen.

According to the ICTR statute, states must assist the tribunal, including in the arrest and detention of defendants. But it does not mention the relocation of acquitted individuals. Neither does the Rome statute, which created the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Yet, with only two convictions and one acquittal so far – all being appealed – even the ICC is already facing this issue.

Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, a former Congolese militia leader acquitted in 2012 after prosecutors failed to prove he ordered atrocities in eastern Congo in 2003, has lodged an asylum request in The Netherlands saying he will be persecuted after he testified against Congolese President Joseph Kabila.

ICC officials play down the issue. “So far there is one acquitted person. He didn’t want to go back but nothing tells us that that will be the norm for the future,” said ICC registrar Herman von Hebel, adding he was sure Ngudjolo could return.

Yet, the problem could come up in future. If acquitted, would former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo want to return to a country led by his rival Alassane Ouattara and where his wife, who also faces ICC charges, sits in detention?

Experts fear this could hurt the image of international criminal justice, already criticised for its alleged slowness, selectivity and alleged shortcomings of its prosecutions.

“It is a human rights issue that the international community, through the UN, takes over criminal proceedings and then doesn’t complete the work and reinstate people who have been acquitted by our system,” said the ICTR’sVagn Joensen.

Von Hebel said he was confident the ICC would be able to build a wider network of states willing to help in the future. But international tribunals, by definition dependent on states’ cooperation, have no means of forcing them to comply.

With the ICTR due to close next September, observers wonder what will happen to the remaining residents of the safe house. The tribunal says it will find a solution for the time being.

“As long as those people have not found homes elsewhere, we will try to continue helping them,” said judge Theodor Meron of the ICTR.

In the longer term, says David Donat Cattin, secretary general of Parliamentarians for Global Action, a network of international lawmakers, it boils down to political will.

“Governments are very lazy,” he said. “They are ready to support the court when there is an anniversary, but when they have to do concrete things, they are very reluctant.”