About 800 Rwandans out of nearly 20 000 who fled to neighbouring Burundi to seek refuge for fear of appearing before local genocide courts have voluntarily returned home in the past month, officials said on Tuesday.
Didace Nzikoruriho, in charge of refugee affairs at Burundi’s interior ministry, said the gradual return was expected to end in the next three months.
”For the past one month, we have repatriated 818 Rwandans among those who had fled to northern Burundi and all of them returned voluntarily,” Nzikoruriho told Agence France Presse.
Thousands of Rwandans, mainly members of the majority Hutu tribe, had fled to Burundi last year after grassroots courts known as ”gacaca” began hearings in the trials of suspects in the country’s 1994 massacre that claimed some 800 000 lives.
They settled in four camps in two provinces lying on the Rwanda-Burundi border, from where many of them applied for asylum status.
But last month, Bujumbura turned down more than 95% of asylum applications, granting only 59 of 1 250 requests.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which is also involved in the return of the Rwandans, confirmed the voluntary repatriation.
”This is a voluntary repatriation; the UNHCR organises the transportation, while the World Food Programme (WFP) supplies food rations,” said Catherine-Lune Grayson, WFP’s spokesperson here, said.
Burundi’s previous government forcefully deported 5 000 Rwandans last June after classifying them as ”illegal immigrants” and drawing international condemnation.
Kigali and Bujumbura settled on an agreement that halted the forceful repatriation, but a joint commission set up to vet asylum seekers with the UN has thus far handled only a fraction of the cases. — AFP
