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U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 2002 - Burundi

More than 375,000 Burundians were refugees at the end of 2001, including more than 350,000 in Tanzania, an estimated 20,000 in Congo-Kinshasa, nearly 2,000 in Zambia, nearly 2,000 in Rwanda, some 1,000 in Zimbabwe, and about 2,000 in a half-dozen other countries. An estimated additional 470,000 Burundians lived without official refugee status in western Tanzania villages and settlements.

Approximately 600,000 or more Burundians were internally displaced, including more than 400,000 living in camps.

At least 100,000 Burundians were newly uprooted during 2001. Nearly 30,000 refugees repatriated to Burundi by year's end, primarily from Tanzania.

Burundi hosted nearly 28,000 refugees at year's end, including nearly 27,000 from Congo-Kinshasa and more than 1,000 from Rwanda.

Pre-2001 Events

Burundi's majority ethnic Hutu and minority ethnic Tutsi populations have violently competed for power for 30 years. A relatively small number of Tutsi elite, primarily from the southwest province of Bururi, have dominated the country's politics and military since national independence in 1962.

Military crackdowns led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Burundians during the 1970s and 1980s. The targeted victims were overwhelmingly Hutu.

In 1993, Burundi's first democratic elections produced a Hutu president. Tutsi soldiers assassinated the new president and other high-ranking Hutu officials several months later, triggering a wave of violence that killed approximately 50,000 people of both ethnic groups. The violence uprooted approximately 1.5 million Burundians, nearly half of whom fled to neighboring countries.

In early 1994, Burundi's newly appointed Hutu president died in a plane crash. In mid-1994, another Hutu was appointed president. Security concerns prevented a national election, however.

Hutu-initiated militia attacks on displaced Tutsi civilians prompted the Tutsi-dominated military to attack Hutu civilians indiscriminately during 1995. Thousands died in the retaliatory raids, which forced tens of thousands of both ethnic groups to flee their homes.

A military-led coup shifted power back to Tutsi elites in 1996 and installed former president Pierre Buyoya as Burundi's new leader.

As rebel military strength increased during the late 1990s, government authorities responded by forcing up to 800,000 Hutu civilians into designated "regroupment" camps to deprive rebels of support in rural areas. After closing most of the forced relocation camps in 1998, authorities responded to renewed rebel attacks in 1999 by re-establishing dozens of new regroupment camps and forcing more than 300,000 Hutu civilians to vacate their homes and occupy the new sites.

The civil war between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-dominated military continued unabated, killing an additional 60,000 or more civilians during 1994-99. Despite continuing violence and bleak prospects for peace, some 200,000 refugees repatriated to Burundi during 1996-99. Many of the returnees, however, fled again when renewed violence struck their communities.

Violence worsened and spread during 2000, particularly in mountains surrounding the capital, Bujumbura, where rebels intensified their attacks. Civilians suffered beatings, rapes, and looting, and more than 1,000 were killed. Many atrocities went unreported as poor security and government restrictions impeded regular access to conflict zones.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela's vigorous mediation yielded a signed peace agreement in mid-2001 among 19 parties and factions, including the Burundian government. Known as the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, the settlement called for a power-sharing government, an ethnically mixed military, and judicial reform.

However, the peace accord had little, if any, positive effect. The agreement contained no cease-fire provision, and Burundi's two main rebel groups, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) and the National Liberation Forces (FNL), refused to sign the accord or engage in negotiations.

2001 Violence and Politics

As in previous years, progress in Burundi's peace negotiations seemed to inflame violence rather than dampen it. Rebel forces, allegedly including Congolese combatants, Rwandan Hutu militia, and former Rwandan Hutu government soldiers, significantly increased their attacks, while Burundian government troops and civilian militia responded harshly.

In January, rebels ambushed three vehicles 20 miles (30 km) northeast of Bujumbura and executed more than 20 civilian passengers, including a British humanitarian worker.

In February, FNL rebel forces systematically killed more than 100 Rwanda Hutu combatants who had been fighting alongside them against the Burundian army. Rebels fleeing bases in Congo-Kinshasa crossed into Burundi and engaged in heavy fighting with the Burundian army in the southern provinces of Makamba and Rutana, killing 10 government soldiers.

In April, rebels attacked a World Food Program (WFP) convoy carrying 60 tons of relief food for 20,000 needy persons in southeastern Burundi, and four WFP workers suffered bullet wounds. An apparent coup attempt by 30 government soldiers failed during that same month.

In July, signatories to the peace accords reportedly agreed to split a three-year transitional national government into two 18-month periods in which a Tutsi president and a Hutu vice-president would lead the government for the first term before switching roles in the second term. Numerous Tutsi and Hutu political leaders rejected the agreement, however, and FDD and FNL rebel leaders vowed to continue fighting.

"We don't see any significant change regarding the interests of the Burundian people, nor the return of peace and democracy," an FDD spokesman declared. Several African nations, including Nigeria and Senegal, offered to deploy peacekeeping troops if a cease-fire could be achieved.

In late July, a second attempted coup failed, leading to the arrest of 200 soldiers, "further destabilized" the northwestern border provinces of Cibitoke and Bubanza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported in October. Larger numbers of armed opposition forces in southern provinces along the border with Tanzania "limited consistent humanitarian access to populations in need" and threatened the safety of innocent civilians and humanitarian workers, OCHA reported, concluding that overall security remained "volatile and precarious."

In November, Burundi's newly integrated transitional government took office. As stipulated in the peace accord, many opposition political leaders who returned to Burundi to occupy high-level government positions after years in exile received protection from a 679-member South African Special Protection Unit.

On two separate occasions in November, FDD rebels raided primary schools and abducted hundreds of students and their teachers. Rebels stormed a boarding school in the village of Musema, northern Kayanza Province, set several dormitories ablaze, and marched 200 students into the surrounding hills.

In Ruyigi Province, along Burundi's eastern border with Tanzania, rebels abducted as many as 100 students. As rebels rampaged through Ruyigi, 2,500 residents – the majority of them children – fled their homes, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported. While most of the students and teachers eventually escaped relatively unharmed after serving as porters and performing other menial tasks for the rebels, the whereabouts of some 30 children abducted in Ruyigi remained unknown.

The country's death toll since 1993 is believed to be approximately 150,000, though some estimates range far higher.

Uprooted Burundians

More than 1 million Burundians remained uprooted at the end of 2001, including some 375,000 refugees in neighboring countries – mostly in Tanzania – and an estimated 600,000 internally displaced persons.

During 2001, outbreaks of violence displaced an estimated 100,000 civilians and destroyed health centers, schools, churches, livestock herds, and thousands of homes. Some 15,000 new Burundian refugees fled to western Tanzania. Despite widespread violence within Burundi, nearly 30,000 Burundian refugees repatriated, primarily from Tanzania to the western provinces of Muyinga, Ruyigi, and Rutana.

Burundi's massive, largely unassisted population of internally displaced persons continued to grow and struggle for survival during 2001. Women and children constituted more than half of the estimated 400,000 Hutu and Tutsi internally displaced persons who lived in some 210 camps scattered throughout the country. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 additional displaced persons survived outside of camps in villages, mountainous regions, and forests, beyond the reach of humanitarian assistance programs.

Conditions for internally displaced Burundians remained deplorable, although humanitarian agencies provided limited food rations and health-care services to some accessible displaced populations. "The food and nutrition situation of the displaced remains unstable," the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported in August.

HIV/AIDS rates in internally displaced camps were particularly high because of the increased prevalence of sexual violence. Education services for displaced children remained largely nonexistent.

Repeated clashes between government troops and rebels during February and March displaced thousands of civilians. A sustained FNL offensive in the village of Kinama, Bujumbura Rural Province, in February and early March killed several hundred combatants and civilians and displaced more than 50,000 persons. Rebel attacks on government troops in Rutana Province uprooted an estimated 10,000 civilians in March.

In April, fighting between government forces and rebels in central Burundi temporarily displaced thousands of civilians. Violence in Gitega Province killed more than 60 combatants and forced some 17,000 civilians to flee to neighboring Mwaro Province in April. Fighting spilled into neighboring Muramvya province and uprooted an additional 10,000 persons. Although poor security prohibited humanitarian workers from conducting assessment missions to the region, "the vast majority of those who fled their homes apparently returned to their areas of origin some days later to protect their belongings against looting," OCHA reported.

Heavy fighting between the Burundian army and FNL rebels in Bujumbura Rural Province during July and August killed some 20 civilians and uprooted nearly 10,000 others, including many who repeatedly fled intense shelling.

Fighting in northwestern Burundi's Bubanza Province between government loyalists and FNL supporters uprooted nearly 10,000 civilians in October. Most of the displaced population fled to a nearby government military base for protection, joining an estimated 5,000 others who fled similar clashes in March.

"Conditions inside Burundi remained non-conducive to large-scale repatriation of refugees," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) concluded.

Humanitarian Conditions

Burundi ranked as the world's third poorest country, according to UN statistics. Civil war and massive population upheaval have exacerbated Burundi's economic downturn, provoked food shortages, and triggered outbreaks of infectious diseases such as malaria.

More than 15 percent of Burundi's population remained uprooted at year's end. Those who remained at home "suffered from insufficient access to adequate food, basic social services and economic opportunities," UN aid officials reported.

Maternal mortality has tripled over the course of the war: More than 1,000 pregnant Burundian women died for every 100,000 live births. Further, more than 50 percent of newborn Burundians were not expected to survive to age 40, according to health statistics. Only about half of the population had access to potable water. One in ten Burundians were infected with HIV/AIDS, and nearly 250,000 children have been orphaned because of the AIDS epidemic. Nearly ten years of war have left more than 25,000 additional orphans in Burundi and some 12,000 unaccompanied Burundian children living as refugees in Tanzania.

More than 90 percent of Burundians are subsistence farmers. With crop yields declining as farmers fled the country or became combatants, Burundi faced a cereal food deficit of more than 200,000 tons in 2001. WFP provided more than 700,000 Burundians with monthly "life-saving food aid" during the year.

Although a nutrition survey conducted in seven provinces during 2001 revealed a 10 percent rate of acute malnutrition among internally displaced populations, severe malnutrition rates declined. The number of persons, primarily women and children, visiting supplementary feeding centers fell from nearly 95,000 in April to less than 45,000 in August.

Armed conflict between government forces and rebel militias damaged education centers throughout the country during 2001, while a shortage of some 3,000 teachers contributed to Burundi's deteriorating education system. School attendance fell to a low of 48 percent, and an estimated 550,000 Burundian children did not attend school during the year.

UN humanitarian agencies appealed to international donors for $107 million to assist Burundians during 2001, but had received only 45 percent of that amount by late in the year. The funding shortfall adversely affected education, child protection, landmine awareness, and HIV/AIDS programs. Child protection programs suffered the largest funding shortfall – 78 percent – dramatically reducing psychosocial support to some 10,000 children and training in income generation for 2,000 child heads of household.

UNHCR also suffered funding shortages and staff reductions, curtailing reintegration programs for nearly 30,000 Burundian refugees who returned home during 2001. "Funding cuts hampered provisions of UNHCR services, including planning needed for refugee return programs," Human Rights Watch reported in December.

UNHCR reintegration projects to help construct or repair Burundi's war-damaged education, health care, and water systems lacked financial support. Projects to help returning refugees and their home communities resume farming or establish small business also suffered budget constraints.

Refugees from Neighboring Countries

About 25,000 refugees from Congo-Kinshasa lived in Burundi at the end of 2001, including some 2,000 new arrivals. More than 1,000 Congolese refugees spontaneously repatriated without international assistance during the year.

Nearly 4,000 Congolese lived in two UNHCR-administered refugee camps, including more than 3,000 in Rugombo camp in Cibitoke Province, just one mile (1.6 km) from the Congolese border. Fewer than 1,000 resided in Ngagara camp in Bujumbura. Congolese refugees in the camps received basic health care, water, and housing materials from UNHCR, and monthly food rations from WFP. An additional 20,000 Congolese refugees lived primarily in Bujumbura without humanitarian assistance.

More than 1,000 Rwandan refugees lived in Burundi at year's end. Many Rwandan refugees experienced difficulty renewing government-issued refugee documents because Burundi's refugee eligibility committee remained inoperable during 2001.