Uprooting the rural poor in Rwanda

After the 1994 genocide the new Rwandan government resettled hundreds of thousands of returned refugees. At the same time it launched a less-well known campaign requiring rural-dwellers, more than 90 percent of the population, to give up their customary way of living in dispersed homes. Since 1997 hundreds of thousands have moved to government-designated resettlement sites called imidugudu, many of them against their will. Ten s of thousands have been ordered to destroy their old homes and many are now sheltered in temporary dwellings, lacking the resources to build new houses. Families headed by women, children, and the elderly have suffered most from the enforced move.