“You are not allowed to talk to any refugees, or take any photos of refugees,” the Mahama camp manager announced from behind his desk in his air-conditioned office. He had waited until this moment, three hours after setting off in the same car from the Rwandan capital of Kigali, to proclaim this. When I had tried on the journey to ask questions about the camp, he told me brusquely that he would not be discussing anything until we got to his office.
As a reporter on the global development desk at the Guardian in London, I had applied for, and been granted, permission to visit Rwanda, and the Mahama camp, to cover the impact of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension and diabetes in refugee camps.
