Why We Became Refugees

I have just read the dreadfully sad five-page account of how Brother and Sister Nyongolo survived to become refugees.

Bro Nyongolo is now 28 from a married Congolese father and Burundian mother. During the tribal war between the two tribes his father was killed and he and his mother, in fear of their lives, fled into the bush for a few years and ended up in Mboko where they were attacked; his mum suffered gunshot and knife wounds and his father's relatives threw them both into lake Tangnyika to drown ­ Sadly, Bro Nyongolo's mother drowned but he somehow managed to get to the shore and eventually to Kigoma (Tanzania), where a kindly truck driver enabled him to stow away in his truck to South Africa, as he had no passport. He stayed for a while as an asylum seeker, managed a little work and then was beaten unconscious and left for dead. Amazingly he recovered in hospital, but later suffered another attack and after further hospitalization was discharged and put in prison; after six months he escaped and ran away to Zimbabwe.

His wife was raped at 13 and again later and had two children and fled to Zimbabwe. These two met in Zimbabwe and shared their horrible experiences and eventually got married and God has blessed them with twin girls and the six of them are now together in the Tongogara Refuge, Camp, which, as camps go, is reasonable and they are so, so happy to be there. The Lord provided so that CAT and others have been able to give them a little help, for which we thank and praise Him ­ alas not all who seek to be refugees have such a happy ending. We praise the Lord, that several more have been baptised in the Tongogara refugee camp where there are is now an ecclesia of fifteen Christadelphian refugees.

Bro and Sister Nyongolo and their four children