Dar Es Salaam | Tuesday
MORE than 16 000 refugees from Burundi who are living in camps in western Tanzania have registered for voluntary repatriation, an official with the United Nations refugee agency in Dar Es Salaam said on Monday.
”Registration of refugees who are voluntarily ready to return to Burundi is going on smoothly and we expect more refugees will come out and register,” said Ivana Unluova, external relations officer for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
About 400 000 Burundi refugees live in neighbouring Tanzania.
Many of them have fled there since 1993, when ethnic violence in the former Belgian colony degenerated into civil war.
The war in the Central African country has so far claimed more than 250 000 lives, most of the victims civilians, including children, women and the elderly.
Tanzania and Burundi have launched campaigns to try and persuade Burundian refugees to return home, following the installation last November of a transitional government in Bujumbura.
Tanzania’s home affairs minister Mohammed Khatib and Burundi’s settlement minister Francoise Gendahayo toured several refugees camps in western Tanzania in late February to promote the repatriation campaign.
”It is time for Burundi refugees to return home but we want them to go there voluntarily in line with the internationally accepted rules,” said Tanzania’s deputy home affairs minister John Chiligati.
He said Khatib and Gendahayo had visited refugees in the western regions of Kigoma and Kagera to brief them on developments in their home country and reassure them they would be safe if they returned.
He said Tanzania was aware there was propaganda circulating to try and dissuade refugees from returning but insisted: ”The refugees must know that they are not going to stay in Tanzania for ever.” – Sapa-AFP