Restoring links between children and their families

When she was three years old, Chantal lost her parents during the 1994 Rwanda genocide and ended up living with a Rwandan foster family in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 1996, she returned to Rwanda with her foster family. At the beginning of 2009, Chantal was registered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which started to search for her biological relatives. At the end of the year, thanks to ICRC's work, Chantal was reunited with her family and is now living again with her aunt and siblings. Since 1995, the tracing service established by the ICRC and its partners in Rwanda and neighbouring countries enabled them to reunite more than 14'000 lost children with their families.

The ICRC supports victims of armed conflicts throughout the world.