Democratic Republic of the Congo: Shwandezi, the baby without a name
As the baby girl – now named Murielle by her foster family – began to adapt to her new life, the good news started to come in. Thanks to the efforts of Red Cross volunteers in the north of the city, the ICRC team was finally able to locate a friend of her mother’s. That friend directed the team to Rwanda where part of her mother’s family lived.
“Based on the information we obtained and sent to our colleagues in Rwanda, we were able to find the baby’s grandparents” said Béatrice. “We informed them that their daughter had died but had left behind a little baby in Goma.”
The grandparents were overwhelmed with emotion. They told the ICRC that Murielle’s real name was Shwandezi, which means “she who is loved for the hope and blessings she brings (after challenging times)”. They also mentioned that Shwandezi has a brother and sister. Last they had heard, the two siblings were living somewhere in Nyiragongo in North Kivu, in the eastern part of the DRC.
Finding Shwandezi’s brother and sister was no easy task due to the Ebola outbreak, which led to travel restrictions. Red Cross volunteers needed permission from local authorities to carry out their activities. Ultimately, their efforts paid off. A seven-year-old boy and four-year-old girl were located in Kibumba. The pair were reunited with their little sister, and all three were taken in by her foster family.
For the protecting family links team, who had been searching for the baby girl’s family for three months, witnessing the moment when the three siblings were finally reunited was a poignant experience.
“Murielle was dozing off in the arms of one of her foster family’s daughters,” said Béatrice, who remembers that moment as if it were yesterday. “As soon as she heard her older brother call her by her real name, Shwandezi, she jolted awake.”
The three siblings lived with the foster family for two months before they could be reunited with their grandparents in Mudende.
It has been a long and challenging journey for the three siblings. First, they lost their parents and were separated. Then they were reunited, thanks to support from the foster family and the hard work of the Red Cross teams. Now a new chapter is unfolding and a new life together as a family.
Shwandezi’s story reminds us that every action to protect family links takes a great deal of time and patience. There are many obstacles and uncertainties along the way. It requires collaborations between Red Cross teams, volunteers, foster families, entire communities and local authorities. Such work is often carried out in the shadows. It requires both perseverance and a sense of humanity. It also carries a deeper mission: to restore the identity of people and reunite those who have been separated from their loved ones by crises. Shwandezi appeared to have lost everything. But in the end, hope won the day. The baby without a name not only has a name again. She has found her family.
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