Tanzania is seeking assistance from the international community and humanitarian agencies to repatriate more than 120,000 Burundian refugees.
They currently live in two camps in western Tanzania’s Kigoma region near the Burundi border.
While humanitarians say conditions there may be better than at home, there have been allegations by rights groups and the UN that Burundian refugees have suffered abuses including arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances at the hands of Tanzanian officers in cooperation with Burundian authorities.
Neither country has commented on those allegations.Speaking at a UN refugee agency meeting in Switzerland on Tuesday, Tanzania’s internal affairs minister Hamad Masauni said Burundi needed support to encourage and facilitate voluntary repatriation.”In order for this plan to be successful, all has to be restored in Burundi.
The most important thing is to support Burundi and make it a favourite for those who seek refuge in Tanzania,” he said.In 2006 and 2007, Tanzania granted citizenship to 160,000 Burundian refugees.