Refugee Week in Bradford: Justin Ndagiro from Congo

To mark Refugee Week, the Telegraph & Argus has spoken to people who were forced to flee their homelands and have since found sanctuary in Bradford.

Today, we hear from Justin Ndagiro. He is from Congo and has been living in Bradford with his young family for five years.

“Bradford is a nice city. You meet people from different cultures, and together you feel like family,” says Justin, who spent most of his life fleeing violence before arriving in West Yorkshire.

“My favourite thing about Bradford are the restaurants, and the people I have made friends with over the years.”

Justin, 34, moved here in 2017 with his two children, although his wife was unable to join them until a year later.

He now has three children, aged four and three, with his youngest celebrating her first birthday on Tuesday.

He lives off Otley Road, works in Bradford Council’s Department of Health and Wellbeing and has recently started studying health and social care at Leeds Trinity.

Justin sits in Bradford's Centenary Square

When he first came to this country, he spoke no English. He also found the local dialect particularly challenging, he says with a smile.

“Oh my god!”, he laughs.

“It was very hard to understand.

“Int’ it? Y’alright love?”, he says in an exaggerated Yorkshire accent.

“But I’m used to it now. English is the language I speak every day. My kids speak English, everything is in English.”

Even as I speak with Justin, I notice he has developed a slight Yorkshire twang since we last spoke a couple of years ago.

Justin furthered his English, and his maths, through studying at Shipley College, and has aspirations to go into politics one day.

He has successfully integrated into British society, despite a life marred by trauma.

He lived through two wars. His grandmother was murdered in front of him when he was a child.

He grew up in eastern Congo, his family later fleeing to the country’s South Kivu province, before crossing the border into Burundi in 2002, where he would spend the next 15 years in a refugee camp.

“We had no hope. It was a hard time,” he says.

In 2004, the Gatumba Massacre claimed the lives of 160 refugees in Burundi – wherever Justin went, violence was all around.

“We wanted to go back to Congo, to our home – but we couldn’t,” he says.

“My family is still back home. I miss them, my childhood and my friends I went to school with.

“I wish the British Government could help me bring my family here.”

Justin is from the Banyamulenge (literally “people from Mulenge”) community, who descend from neighbouring Rwanda.

They have a long history of emigration to Congo – between 200 and 500 years.

Despite this, the Banyamulenge – a largely rural, farming community – are often perceived as foreigners and face persecution.

Justin first spoke to the Telegraph & Argus in November 2019, amid growing violence in Congo.

"They kill my relatives as if they're animals. They kill us because we're different,” he said at the time.

Justin first told me his story through tears. Just weeks later, after I messaged him to check in, he told me a relative had been killed.

A message from Justin breaking some bad news

“I hope the UK can do something to stop this,” he says.

“We see the situation in Ukraine, which is so sad, but why can’t they talk about Congo too?

“It affects me of course, but I’m in peace now, in Bradford. I will give back to this country, for what it has done for me.

“Every day, I’m doing things I always wanted. It’s like stairs. Every day I jump up one stair, then another.

“I want to be educated and contribute. You get racist people who think refugees don’t want to work, but not every refugee is like that.

“You shouldn’t beg for money. Go to work, make your life and don’t get involved in drugs.”

Justin wants to use his journey to inspire change.

“If I get citizenship, I might join politics, I’m telling you!” he says.

“I want to make a difference.

“I have seen people suffer, I have slept without eating, I know how it is – so maybe I might change something.”