Burundi: Fleeing violence, families face the agony of separation

“Recently, we registered an unaccompanied child who seems to be only a year and a half old,” says Noemie Niyongere, who works with the ICRC’s Protection of Family Links program in Burundi. “We don’t even know exactly how old he is because a guardian just picked him up on the road. We don’t know his name. But we are working with the DRC Red Cross and the ICRC office in Kinshasa to help find his family.”

Unaccompanied children like this little boy face extraordinary risks in times of displacement. Without a parent or caregiver, they are especially vulnerable to exploitation, illness, or further trauma. 

For the Red Cross Movement, reuniting these children with their families is a matter of urgency and compassion. “Recently, we registered an unaccompanied child who seems to be only a year and a half old,” says Noemie Niyongere, who works with the ICRC’s Protection of Family Links program in Burundi. “We don’t even know exactly how old he is because a guardian just picked him up on the road. We don’t know his name. But we are working with the DRC Red Cross and the ICRC office in Kinshasa to help find his family.”

Unaccompanied children like this little boy face extraordinary risks in times of displacement. Without a parent or caregiver, they are especially vulnerable to exploitation, illness, or further trauma. 

For the ICRC, reuniting these children with their families is a matter of urgency.

When war tears families apart, it is connection - and hope - that carries them forward.