When Everyone Gave Up, RESTOBU Stepped In

John (left), Ange and Ann (right) received by the Head of Restobu. (All names changed)

John, Ann, and Ange are three young people whose lives were deeply marked by hardship. Born into families with very limited means, they grew up struggling to survive from a very young age.

John, now 33 years old, worked as a welder to earn a living. Ann, 25, survived by doing women’s hairstyles. Ange, the youngest at only 13 years old, was already a young mother. Her situation was especially painful: abandoned by her husband who went to Tanzania when her baby was just two months old, she struggled to survive by selling fruits on the streets. All three lived in Buterere, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Bujumbura City.

Crushed by daily struggles and emotional distress, they slowly fell into drug use. For John and Ann, bad peer influence led them down this path. Ange’s story was even more heartbreaking. She began using drugs after the death of her mother, her only remaining source of support. Having lost her father at the age of six, been married at thirteen, and later abandoned by her husband while caring for a two-month-old baby, Ange returned to her mother for help. When her mother eventually passed away, she was left alone, grieving, and overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising a newborn with no support. She turned to drugs in an attempt to escape this pain.

One Tuesday, the place where they used to take drugs was raided by the police. John, Ann, and Ange were arrested, investigated, and sentenced to one year in prison for drug abuse. What followed was a year of intense suffering for these young people without any external support. Life in Burundi’s prisons is widely known to be difficult due to overcrowding, where a prison  can house more than 5 times its initial capacity. Some of the challenges include malnutrition, lack of hygiene, illnesses due to bad living conditions and the like. Their experience was traumatic

John recalls:

“Life in prison is not easy at all. Food was poorly prepared and never enough, and hunger was constant. There were no beds or mattresses, so I slept on the ground, surrounded by insects that caused painful bites and infections. I sometimes had to sleep outside. Rain would fall in the middle of the night and soak my body as I lay on the ground. I thank God that hunger did not kill me, because surviving each day was extremely difficult.”Medical care was almost nonexistent. Illnesses often went untreated and pain was ignored.

Ann adds:

“My life in prison was miserable. The conditions were extremely bad. I could easily get sick, but there was no medical treatment. There was not enough food, and the loneliness was killing me because no one came to visit me.”

Beyond the physical suffering was deep emotional pain. No family member came to visit. No friend asked about their wellbeing. They were completely forgotten."

Ange shares her pain:

“Nobody from my relatives came to see me. I felt completely abandoned. I don’t wish prison on anyone. Life there is terrible. Sleeping on the ground for a whole year was not easy at all.”

Fortunately, RESTOBU, which is dedicated to helping the powerless and the forgotten intervened. RESTOBU’s lawyers followed up on the case, and thanks to this intervention, the three appeared before the courts and were officially sentenced to one year in prison.

Through the relentless efforts of RESTOBU, these young people were released two months after completing their sentence. For them, seeing someone come for them behind prison bars, when everyone else had abandoned them, felt almost unreal.

“May God bless you abundantly and give you more courage to rescue other people who are still in prison,” said John. Ann added, “May God bless you so much and grant His blessings over your projects.”For Ange, walking out of prison felt like a dream: “Even now, I still don’t believe that I am no longer in prison. I thank everyone who helped us. May God continue to bless you so that you can help other prisoners.”

RESTOBU continues to provide legal assistance and accompanies former prisoners as they rebuild their lives. This support includes trauma healing, social reintegration, efforts to prevent reoffending, and financial accompaniment through small start-up capital