Former Rwandan tea-pickers to be repatriated

The Rwandan government is set to repatriate hundreds of its nationals who lost their jobs as tea-pickers in Kenya’s Kericho tea highlands. Rwanda’s Ambassador to Kenya Joy Mukanyange told IRIN on Friday that the group comprises Rwandans who were brought to Kenya in the 1930s and 40s by colonialists to work on the tea plantations. Others came in the 1970s, and as recently as the 1990s, and settled in the Kericho area in Kenya’s Rift Valley province. She said these people had worked as real labourers all their lives, but “in the late 80s and early 90s, the companies started dismissing them”. “They could get short contracts thereafter, but this also ceased, so they were left with no alternative but to work for other registered workers,” she said. “Their conditions have been pretty bad and a group of between 300-500 of them approached the embassy to help them go back to Rwanda.” “Our government’s policy of national unity is to repatriate all who wish go home,” she said. “It believes that those who want to should feel free to go back home.” She said the government is currently working closely with the International Organisation for Immigration (IOM) on this issue.