THE Irish aid agency, Concern, has taken in almost 4,000 lost children who have arrived in Rwanda since last Friday with the massive influx of refugees into the northwestern part of the country.
The children, mostly boys, are now being housed in temporary transit centres while efforts are made to trace their families.
Many of them got lost in the densely packed group of 500,000 refugees that crossed the border from Zaire. A small number are orphans who have been living in refugee camps in Zaire for the past two years.
The recent fighting in Zaire and the resulting displacement of people from their homes "has increased once again the occurrence of tragic situations which result in calamitous and long term psychological damage to children," Concern stated.
"Bereavement, separation, witnessing or experiencing of violence extended periods of hunger, exposure, exhaustion and fear are situations which are all too familiar to children in the Great Lakes region."
According to a UNICEF spokesman, around 1,800 families in Gisenyi, who poured in from the Goma area of Zaire, have notified aid staff they are looking for their children.
UNICEF, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and several non governmental agencies have set up a special transit centre to house such parents.
The predominance of boys among the lost children is, according to the spokesman, "probably because girls are more disciplined. Also, the role of girls is different. They take care of younger children and stay with their mothers".
The children are being cared for in several shelters. Aid workers have begun taking their photographs to pass around to searching parents.
The children have been divided according to their Rwandan prefecture of origin, and agencies have begun transferring them to areas closer to home.
The ICRC brought 400 children from Gisenyi to Kigali yesterday. Another 200 will be taken to Gisenyi prefecture and 64 brought to Medecins Sans Frontieres in Gisenyi province.
UNICEF yesterday also expressed concern about reports of armed child soldiers being seen in the Kirotshe area between the Mugunga and Katale camps in Zaire.
Boys as young as eight have been seen with automatic weapons, the spokesman said.
The traumatic events in the Great Lakes region of the past few years have left 94,739 registered unaccompanied children who are still in centres, camps or foster care. A total of 25,447 family reunifications have taken place.
The children taken into care include 108 babies found on a hillside after the Rwandan armed forces violently cleared the Kibeho camp inside Rwanda in April last year, causing thousands of deaths. Interahamwe militias had been using the camp as a base.