Pain of separation haunts some refugees: 'We have food, but our own children don't'

Vasita Hakizimana flips through a stack of photos of her children who are still back in Africa.

She stops at one of her son James Niyonzigiye, called Mandela by the family, standing next to his wife as they pose for a picture outside their mud-brick home in Burundi.

Vasita brings the picture close to her face and blows a kiss, then another and another.

She goes through the photos over and over again inside her one-bedroom apartment at Dogwood Manor, a high-rise building in downtown Chattanooga with a view of the Tennessee River and Lookout Mountain.

Vasita and her husband, James Girukwayo, last saw their sons and daughters in 2007, when the couple boarded a white bus inside a refugee camp in northwestern Tanzania. The adults waved, the grandchildren cried.

They all thought they soon would rebuild their lives together in America.

They still are waiting.

Read More. (ChattanoogaTimes Free Press)