BURUNDI-DRC: 518 Congolese refugees transferred to Muyinga, northern Burundi
A total of 518 of 3,000 refugees of Congolese origin have been transferred from transit centres in Cibitoke and Bujumbura Rural to Muyinga Province in a government-led move to establish a unified refugee camp in the north of the country. Some of the refugees had been living in the "transit centres" for up to two and three years, an official from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told IRIN.
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BURUNDI-DRC: 518 Congolese refugees transferred to Muyinga, northern Burundi
NAIROBI, 3 June (IRIN) - A total of 518 of 3,000 refugees of Congolese origin have been transferred from transit centres in Cibitoke and Bujumbura Rural to Muyinga Province in a government-led move to establish a unified refugee camp in the north of the country.
Some of the refugees had been living in the "transit centres" for up to two and three years, an official from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told IRIN.
"It is a government decision to transfer the refugees," Gabriele Bagi, said. "It has the right to settle them where it thinks they will be more secure in terms of welfare and well-being. The transit centres could not be maintained any longer."
The transfer process was entirely voluntary, Bagi said, and the refugees were free to remain where they were. But he said that the current UNHCR assistance effort - of food and non-food items, education, water and sanitation - would be stopped as soon as the majority had been transferred and the Burundi government had closed the transit camps.
For security reasons, however, many of the Congolese refugees of Tutsi origin - the Banyamulenge - are reportedly reluctant to move. Speaking of the danger of attack from Burundi Hutu rebel groups, the Forces pour la defence de la democratie and Forces nationales pour la liberation, a member of the Banyamulenge community told Radio Bonesha on 30 May that it was impossible to ignore the ethnic problems in the Great Lakes region.
Secondly, he said, Muyinga politicians had accused his community of being "unsociable" and "undisciplined". He added, "How then is the population of Muyinga going to welcome us with open arms?"
On 29 May Expresso news agency quoted Banyamulenge saying, "Agreeing to go to Muyinga is agreeing to go to our death".
The Burundi government, however, is keen to close the transit centres. "If these refugees do not want to go to Muyinga, let them go home," Expresso quoted Interior Minister Salvator Ntihabose saying during a news conference on the same day.
"It is not up to the refugees to say what they want. The government has decided on the site of the camps after sufficient reflection and they should conform to that decision," he added.
[ENDS]
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