On World Refugee Day, as the United Nations chief urged countries to offer more help for refugees, Kitty Nivyabandi, a refugee activist originally from Burundi who now lives in Ottawa, echoed his plea and shared her own story with CTV News Channel.
For Nivyabandi World Refugee Day is “a painful reminder” of the day she herself became a refugee.
In 2015 when the Burundi ruling party announced President Pierre Nkurunziza would seek a third term in office protests broke out.
Nivyabandi told CTV News Channel she took to the streets and mobilized women to participate in a peaceful protest.
“But we were brutally treated by the police,” she said.
As the country’s situation worsened Nivyabandi chose to flee her country.
She first traveled to Rwanda, then Kenya and finally settled in Canada, although she didn’t originally plan on staying for a long time.
“No one wants to leave their country. No one wants to be a refugee,” she said.
But despite not planning on making Canada her home, she said: “I consider myself to be fortunate to be where I am today.”
Nivyabandi said her story isn’t that of many refugees.
“It’s not the story of thousands of Burundians who have since been abducted, tortured, murdered in the most brutal manners,” she said.
Nor is it the story of many of the 6.5 million refugees who were forced from their homes in 2016.
“Many are stranded in other countries in the most difficult circumstances,” she said.
Now Nivyabandi is slowly trying to rebuild her life.
“[I’m] like a little bird picking up the pieces,” she said. “It isn’t easy at all. It’s a very traumatic experience.”
But she hopes that when people think of her story and those of other refugees they remember their incredible resilience.
“Refugees, who come with a myriad of stories, the most painful ones, but they’re still able to get up and start over, that truly ought to be celebrated and inspire all of us to try and do more,” she said, adding: “We really must do better.”
