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Govt, UNHCR differ over ’insecurity’ in Burundi
2006-02-18 09:13:47
By Pascal Shao
The government yesterday clarified that the current influx of Burundians crossing over into the country was due to famine and not insecurity.
In a telephone interview with The Guardian yesterday, Kigoma Regional Police Commander James Kombe, discounted a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR) claim that some of the thousands of people were escaping into Tanzania due to renewed fighting in Burundi.
’There is no such a thing as war or FNL activities in Burundi. These are not refugees but people fleeing from hunger. They are escaping from famine, and are in search of food in Tanzania,’ said the RPC.
On Wednesday, UNHCR said that thousands of Burundians were pouring into Tanzania to escape famine and insecurity.
’Some 3,500 Burundians have crossed the border since the start of the year and the number keeps growing at an average of 100 new arrivals a day,’ UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis had said in Geneva.
But as Kombe denied claims that the influx was occasioned by insecurity in Burundi, UNHCR Country Representative Chrysantus Ache, told The Guardian that although the Burundians were trickling into Tanzania due to insecurity, famine was also rife in their country.
Speaking to The Guardian separately on telephone yesterday, the duo appeared to contradict each on the actual cause of the exodus of the Burundians into Tanzania.
RPC Kombe said a governor, whom he declined to name had informed him that there was peace in Burundi.
Kombe said that Burundians were flocking into Tanzania because of the proximity of the refugee camps to the border, and were simply crossing over in search of food.
He, however, said that the Burundians had been confined waiting for the government’s decision. However, he was categorical that none of the aliens had crossed over with weapons.
Earlier, Ache told The Guardian that the Burundians were fleeing from insecurity caused by FNL and famine.
’Some are coming to Tanzania because of famine while some are coming due to insecurity by the FNL troops in Burundi,’ he maintained.
The UNHCR chief was emphatic that his colleagues in the field had gathered in their interviews with the refugees that the Burundians were being compelled to flee their homes due to insecurity.
Ache said that the government’s Ad Hoc Committee on Eligibility is scrutinising to authenticate whether they qualified to be granted refugee status.
He said that the UNHCR and its partners such as the World Vision and Red Cross would provide food, water, medical treatment and other amenities to the Burundians.
Early this year, the Tanzania government indicated it would repatriate 541 Burundians denied refugee status.
The majority of the new arrivals are said to hail from Burundi’s Eastern Province of Ruyigi. A significant number of them had recently returned to Burundi after years of living as refugees in Tanzania.
The UNHCR spokesperson had expressed pessimism over the living conditions at the Way Stations, three of which together are estimated to host 4,000 ’asylum seekers’ in Kibondo District in Northwestern Tanzania.
UNHCR has been negotiating with the Tanzanian authorities to be granted the liberty to relocate those granted asylum away from the border and into the already established camps.
Pagonis said so far, however, only a small number of people had been granted asylum, 57 of them were moved to Mkugwa Refugee Camp last Friday and another group of some 100 is yet to be moved.
The UN agency assists at least 350,000 refugees in Tanzania, 195,000 of them from Burundi. UNHCR has been running a voluntary repatriation operation for Burundian refugees since 2002 with already 290,000 having benefited.
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