UNHCR Must Protect Rwandan Activists in Uganda and Relocate Them to Safety

The Global Campaign for Rwandans' Human Rights calls on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to act immediately to protect Rwandan activists and human rights defenders living in Uganda, and to relocate them to a safe country away from the reach of Rwandan agents.

Why Now

On the morning of 17 October 2026, Sergeant Major Robert Kabera, a Rwandan exile in Uganda who ran a YouTube channel exposing atrocities committed by the Rwandan regime, was found beheaded in Uganda. We have many reasons to believe he was killed by Rwandan agents, as the method and brutality carry the hallmark of the regime's operations against its critics abroad.

He is not the first. Rwandan refugees and exiles in Uganda have for years faced abductions, harassment, threats and killings. Joel Mutabazi was seized from a protected safehouse in Kampala in 2013 and handed to Rwandan custody. The pattern is documented, and it has now reached its most brutal expression yet.

What We Ask of UNHCR

• Immediately review the protection situation of every Rwandan activist, journalist and human rights defender registered with UNHCR in Uganda, and treat each as potentially at risk.
• Provide urgent protection measures to those in danger, including secure shelter, case processing and priority interviews.
• Open emergency resettlement channels to move Rwandan activists and defenders out of Uganda to safe countries where Rwandan agents cannot reach them, in line with UNHCR's own resettlement criteria for survivors of persecution and threats.
• Grant refugee status determinations that take full account of the documented pattern of transnational repression by the Rwandan regime, so that no Rwandan critic is returned or left exposed.
• Coordinate with the Government of Uganda and host countries to ensure the safety of those in transit and in resettlement.

What We Ask of Host Governments

Countries able to receive Rwandan refugees in danger must open their doors now. Uganda, for its part, must investigate the killing of Robert Kabera transparently and take immediate measures to protect the Rwandan exiles on its territory.

No More Silence

Robert Kabera was killed in a country that had given him refuge, while under the protection framework that exists precisely for people like him. If the system cannot protect a man who spoke openly under his own name, it must at least move those still alive to safety. We call on UNHCR to act before the next name becomes another headline.