As refugee pipeline reopens, father from Congo reunites in R.I. with wife and baby – News – providencejournal.com – WBNews

“When you are a refugee, you are dead. In the United States, you can start again to live,” Claude Kanezi Buana-Tchiiza says after his wife and son arrive at Green Airport. Karen Lee Ziner Journal Staff Writer karenleez WARWICK — Claude Kanezi Buana-Tchiiza, a refugee from The Democratic Republic of Congo, lifted his arms skyward at the airport Tuesday night and thanked God for America. His wife and son had just arrived from Ethiopia, at liberty to travel after a federal appeals court last week refused to reinstate President Donald Trump’s order halting the flow of refugees worldwide to the United States. Outside T.F. Green Airport, Buana-Tchiiza embraced his wife, and clutched the boy — Don-Béni, whose name means blessed gift. Don-Béni was 10 days old when Buana-Tchiiza left for refugee resettlement in Rhode Island. That was a year and a half ago. “He doesn’t recognize me,” Buana-Tchiiza said, smiling at the bewildered boy in the blue snowsuit. His wife had the baby, “and 10 days after that I traveled. The process to register the baby was difficult,” and mother and son were forced to remain behind in Ethiopia. Buana-Tchiiza, an engineer and teacher by training, escaped civil war in The Congo and fled from there to Uganda and then to Kenya before finding refuge in Ethiopia. There he met his wife, Sylvie, who also fled The Congo. Staff from Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island — the resettlement agency handling the arrivals — greeted Buana-Tchiiza’s family at T.F. Green,…more detail