- Text size
| 
| 
| 
-
Growing numbers of Burundians return home from the DRC
News Stories, 23 October 2006
GATUMBA, Burundi, October 23 (UNHCR) – The UNHCR convoys arriving in Burundi in the past four years have carried refugees returning home from Tanzania, but now more and more of the singing, clapping returnees are coming back from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Hundreds of refugees among the estimated 19,000 Burundian refugees in the DRC have arrived home since September 7, when the Burundian government signed a peace agreement with the country's last active rebel group – Forces Nationales de Libération (FNL).
Some 780 have returned with the assistance of the UN refugee agency, and many more are waiting. Convoys organised by UNHCR are now temporarily suspended in the run-up to the DRC elections on October 29.
"Since we heard on the radio that [FNL leader Agathon] Rwasa has signed an agreement with the authorities, we decided it would be safe to come home," said Jean Bosco Baranyizigiye, accompanied by his wife and their two daughters. "Not long ago, insecurity was still high in our provinces," he added after arriving in Mutimbuzi near the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, from Uvira in the DRC's South Kivu province.
Most passengers on this and the other convoys originated from Burundian provinces neighbouring the DRC. Sporadic fighting in these areas ended only recently. The majority of the returnees are arriving empty-handed, unlike those returning from Tanzanian camps with belongings and even livestock. They did not live in assisted camps in the DRC, but in villages and the countryside, where they survived from hand to mouth.
Returnee Christiane Cimpaye said that since fleeing fighting in Burundi in 1993, she had subsisted by working for others and sometimes begging. She arrived in Gatumba in eastern Burundi with a pair of torn yellow plastic shoes, two loincloths and two children.
She said she wanted to send her children to school but did not have any money. Her face lit up when UNHCR repatriation assistant Tatien Ndajujuta explained that things have changed in Burundi and that primary education has been free since last year.
When they arrive in Burundi, returnees are taken to a reception centre where they are registered by the authorities and given a basic UNHCR assistance package, including goods such as blankets, mats, pots and plastic sheeting. The World Food Programme provides food rations for three months.
The returnees are then transported to their place of origin where, in most cases, they will have to find a temporary shelter while building a home for their family.
One confident refugee, 20-year-old Patrick Mvukiye, was planning firmly for the future. His priority is to get some land so that he can build a home and plant the soya beans he brought back with him from the DRC. Then he wants to find a wife – the dowry will be much cheaper in Burundi, Myukiye said, adding that his engagement to a woman in the DRC broke up when her family demanded more cows than he could afford.
More than 319,000 refugees have repatriated to Burundi since UNHCR started assisting the return process in 2002. Most have gone back from camps in Tanzania. Nearly 400,000 Burundians who fled inter-ethnic massacres in 1972 and from 1993 to 1996 are still in exile.
By Catherine-Lune Grayson in Gatumba, Burundi
- 1 Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees
- 2 UNHCR Lebanon Update: Situation in North Lebanon, 4 February-10 February 2012
- 3 UNHCR seeks US$145 million to help tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees
- 4 UNHCR aid to countries receiving people fleeing clashes in northern Mali
- 5 The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol
Related stories by:
- Urban teacher gives up life in Congo to start afresh in Angola
- UNHCR wraps up one of world's biggest IDP operations in Uganda
- UNHCR steps up repatriation from Liberia to Côte d'Ivoire
- UNHCR resumes return programme for more than 40,000 Angolan refugees
- Return figures to Afghanistan down to 60,000 in first 10 months
UNHCR country pages
Repatriation
UNHCR works with the country of origin and host countries to help refugees return home.
Return to Swat Valley
Thousands of displaced Pakistanis board buses and trucks to return home, but many remain in camps for fear of being displaced again.
Thousands of families displaced by violence in north-west Pakistan's Swat Valley and surrounding areas are returning home under a government-sponsored repatriation programme. Most cited positive reports about the security situation in their home areas as well as the unbearable heat in the camps as key factors behind their decision to return. At the same time, many people are not yet ready to go back home. They worry about their safety and the lack of access to basic services and food back in Swat. Others, whose homes were destroyed during the conflict, are worried about finding accommodation. UNHCR continues to monitor people's willingness to return home while advocating for returns to take place in safety and dignity. The UN refugee agency will provide support for the transport of vulnerable people wishing to return, and continue to distribute relief items to the displaced while assessing the emergency shelter needs of returnees. More than 2 million people have been displaced since early May in north-west Pakistan. Some 260,000 found shelter in camps, but the vast majority have been staying with host families or in rented homes or school buildings.
Return to Swat Valley
UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu
As a massive food distribution gets underway in six UNHCR-run camps for tens of thousands of internally displaced Congolese in North Kivu, the UN refugee agency continues to hand out desperately needed shelter and household items.
A four-truck UNHCR convoy carrying 33 tonnes of various aid items, including plastic sheeting, blankets, kitchen sets and jerry cans crossed Wednesday from Rwanda into Goma, the capital of the conflict-hit province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The aid, from regional emergency stockpiles in Tanzania, was scheduled for immediate distribution. The supplies arrived in Goma as the World Food Programme (WFP), with assistance from UNHCR, began distributing food to some 135,000 displaced people in the six camps run by the refugee agency near Goma.
More than 250,000 people have been displaced since the fighting resumed in August in North Kivu. Estimates are that there are now more than 1.3 million displaced people in this province alone.
Posted on 6 November 2008
UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu
UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu
Since 2006, renewed conflict and general insecurity in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's North Kivu province has forced some 400,000 people to flee their homes – the country's worst displacement crisis since the formal end of the civil war in 2003. In total, there are now some 800,000 people displaced in the province, including those uprooted by previous conflicts.
Hope for the future was raised in January 2008 when the DRC government and rival armed factions signed a peace accord. But the situation remains tense in North Kivu and tens of thousands of people still need help. UNHCR has opened sites for internally displaced people (IDPs) and distributed assistance such as blankets, plastic sheets, soap, jerry cans, firewood and other items to the four camps in the region. Relief items have also been delivered to some of the makeshift sites that have sprung up.
UNHCR staff have been engaged in protection monitoring to identify human rights abuses and other problems faced by IDPs and other populations at risk across North Kivu.
UNHCR's ninemillion campaign aims to provide a healthy and safe learning environment for nine million refugee children by 2010.
Posted on 28 May 2008
UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu
Tanzania: Road to Citizenship
In 2007, UNHCR and the government of Tanzania gave him a choice: return home or become Tanzanian. It was an easy decision for Michael Sheltieri Namoya.
Pakistan: The Floods Return
Flooding has returned to Pakistan, forcing people to flee their homes for the second year in a row. A year after his wife died in floodwaters, Obhayo Babar is on the move again.
Egypt: Egyptians Cross Back Home
A steady stream of people have been crossing into Egypt from Libya. These migrant workers were elated to return home.