The shiny rooftops — a mix of iron sheets and tarpaulins — atop the imposing hill welcome you to Gicumbi town in Northern Province. A group of children clad in school uniform temporarily abandon classes to gather and gawk at the SUVs ferrying in visitors as they roar up the hill.

Women go about their household chores — ferrying jerrycans of water and foodstuff — uninterrupted as old people with walking sticks linger idly, just like the teenage girls and boys loitering around with little or nothing to do.

A repugnant odour, perhaps due to the poor sanitary conditions and lack of facilities, hovers over the settlement which is congested with more than 8,000 semi-permanent structures housing more than 17,000 people.

This is Gihembe Refugee Camp, one of the facilities hosting the 73,000 Congolese refugees living in Rwanda. The camp opened in December 1997 after the Mudende massacres. Thousands of people who had fled eastern DR Congo (DRC) were pursued and killed in Mudende, Rubavu District, where they had camped.

The Congolese Tutsi, from Masisi and Rutshuru in North Kivu, fled into Rwanda between 1995 and 1997 after the area was infiltrated by heavily armed Hutu militias and former Rwandan government soldiers who had been defeated by the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1994.

“After they were defeated in Rwanda, they continued with the same genocide ideology of killing Tutsis, killing hundreds of Congolese Tutsi when they entered the country, so we decided to flee to Rwanda. They wanted to finish us,” recalls one of the refugees in Gihembe camp, Nshoyinyana Nkuriza, 94.

Eighteen years later, Mr Nkuriza and the rest continue to live in the camp with little or no hope of returning home.

“I cannot go back to DRC. To do what?” the elderly refugee asks. “I am 94, I’m too old to start life afresh. I don’t think my properties are still there. I am now resigned to die in Rwanda.”

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Many of the refugees in Gihembe have resolved to remain in the camp, arguing that the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which consists of elements who hounded them out of their homes, remain in the area, make it unsafe for them to return home.

At a town hall meeting on Tuesday with US Ambassador to Rwanda Erica Barks-Ruggles, Minister for Disaster Preparedness and Refugee Affairs Séraphine Mukantabana and the UNHCR Country Representative to Rwanda Dr Azam Saber, the refugees expressed their desire to return home.

They however lamented that despite the continued existence of FDLR in their homeland, Kinshasa was not giving them the assurance that their security would be guaranteed if they went back.

The US diplomat told the refugees that besides Washington seeking a permanent solution to insecurity in eastern DRC, a programme to resettle at least 10,000 of them in the US was under way. The resettlement programme, which began in 2012, is being implemented in all camps with Congolese refugees in Rwanda, she said.

“Last year, 2,500 left Rwanda for the US and this year another 1,500 will go, although this is not a permanent solution to your problem,” said Ms Barks-Ruggles. “We are working with different partners within the region, including the International Conference for the Great Lakes region, to find peace in your country so that you can return home.”

Threat of disease

Working in groups, the refugees obtain grants from the American Refugee Committee and other organisations operating in the camps to start income-generating projects such as passion fruit and mushroom growing. They also engage in the sale of art and handicraft that they make, as well as doing menial jobs.

However, life remains tough for most of the households as Silas Buhanga, a health advocate at Gihembe, told the visitors. Their biggest fear is disease.

“We are too many, crammed together in this camp,” said Mr Buhanga. “Families which came with only three people may now be having eight dependants. There is pressure on the facilities.”

Ms Mukantabana however advised them against the mentality of waiting for external help yet they can put in place most of the things themselves.

“Things to do with sanitation entirely depend on you,” she said. “You do not expect UNHCR or another NGO to come and clean the camp for you.”