BURUNDI PEACE PROCESS: 2500 REFUGEES LEAVE TANZANIA
More than 2500 Burundian refugees who have been living in Tanzania have been repatriated since the installation of a transitional government in Burundi last November. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the refugees started leaving last month. According to a daily Tanzanian newspaper, 1083 refugees left Kigoma, Tanzania, last week for the Burundian capital Bujumbura.
BURUNDI PEACE PROCESS: 2500 REFUGEES LEAVE TANZANIA
By Sukhdev Chhatbar
ARUSHA 24 April 2002 (Internews) More than 2500 Burundian refugees who have been living in Tanzania have been repatriated since the installation of a transitional government in Burundi last November.
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the refugees started leaving last month. According to a daily Tanzanian newspaper, 1083 refugees left Kigoma, Tanzania, last week for the Burundian capital Bujumbura.
The refugees were transported in UNHCR trucks and escorted by UNHCR officials and security personnel from Tanzania and Burundi.
The UNHCR says 5000 refugees have registered for voluntary repatriation, bringing the number of those wishing to return home to 55,300.
However, UNHCR points out that approximately 600,000 refugees in Tanzania are from the southern provinces in Burundi, where the security situation is still tense.
Last month Burundian Minister for Reintegration Françoise Ngendahayo and her Tanzanian counterpart Mohamed Khatib visited the Tanzanian camps to reassure the refugees that they would not be repatriated by force.
The total number of refugees in Tanzania is approximately 1.5 million, comprising those from Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The transitional government in Burundi was mediated by Nelson Mandela, former South African President, under an accord signed in Arusha, Tanzania, by 19 Burundian parties in August 2000.
According to the terms of the three-year transitional period, Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, who heads the largest pro-Tutsi party in Burundi, UPRONA, and Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, the Secretary-General for the pro-Hutu Front for Democracy (FRODEBU), will govern for the first 18 months. The second 18-month phase will have a Hutu president and a Tutsi vice- president, yet to be determined.
Civil war erupted in Burundi in 1993 when ethnic Tutsi paratroopers allegedly killed President Melchior Ndadaye, the first democratically elected president. More than 250,000 people have died in the conflict.
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