Mass repatriation of refugees fuels fears

NAIROBI: Burundi said yesterday that a first group of its refugees in Tanzania would return home tomorrow as a mass repatriation planned by the two governments begins, a Burundian official said.

About 1 000 refugees are in the first group, Nestor Bimenyimana, the Burundi government’s general manager for repatriation, said.

He said that the process was “voluntary”.

Burundi and Tanzania agreed in August that repatriations of 200 000 Burundi refugees in Tanzania would start yesterday, sparking fears of forced returns among some of those who crossed the border to escape violence.

Hundreds of Burundians have been killed in clashes with security forces since 2015, when President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third, disputed term in office. Over the same period, more than 400 000 fled, predominantly to Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UN and rights groups have said they feared the governments may force the refugees to return home to a dangerous environment where they face political persecution.

After the announcement in August, refugees in camps said there was no way they would be safe at home.

“At this stage, things are not conductive for mass returns,” said Babar Baloch, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, said yesterday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the Burundi’s government does not tolerate criticism, and security services carry out summary executions, rapes, abductions and intimidation of suspected political opponents.

Burundi’s ruling party denies systematic human rights violations.

UN investigators wrote in a report last month that Burundi was at risk of a new wave of atrocities as it approaches a 2020 election with an unresolved political crisis and a president increasingly portrayed as a “divine” ruler.

A former ethnic Hutu guerrilla leader, Nkurunziza came to power in 2005 at the end of a civil war in which 300 000 died. Burundi is divided between the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups. |