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A group of 481 Rwandans, who have been living as refugees in Uganda for the past 11 years, returned home on Thursday, an official of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday.
"The refugees spent a night in a transit camp," Sebastian Apatita, the UNHCR head of office for the northeastern province of Byumba, said. "We are now preparing transport to take them to their local homes."
The group fled Rwanda during the 1994 genocide in which up to 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus died, according to Rwandan government estimates.
Apatita said the group would be provided with food and non-food items before their departure to help them settle down once they got home.
UNHCR had already contacted the local authorities overseeing the areas of resettlement for the returnees, he said.
The returnees arrived on board 11 UN trucks from Nakivale and Orichinga refugee settlements in western Uganda.
Rwanda, Uganda and UNHCR signed a tripartite agreement in 2003 for the voluntary repatriation of up to 20,000 Rwandan refugees who have been staying in Uganda. However, since then, just about 2,500 Rwandans had voluntarily returned home.
Rwanda has signed similar agreements with the governments of Malawi, Namibia, Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zambia.
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