Some 1,400 Rwandan refugees in Uganda

About 1,400 Rwandan refugees have crossed into Uganda from Karagwe, northern Tanzania, a UNHCR official in Nairobi, Dominik Bartsch said on Thursday. A local Ugandan newspaper had reported on Tuesday that about 15,000 Rwandan refugees had arrived in southern Uganda following an order by the district to expel all non citizens. “The figure was exaggerated and we have no information on the expulsion of the refugees,” Bartsch said. According to him, the Tanzanian authorities were undertaking a verification exercise in the area and had suggested that those who had no grounds to live in the country and had no citizenship should move to the camp in the Kigoma area. “They decided to instead move to Uganda as asylum seekers and not refugees,” Bartsch explained. “Whether they will be granted asylum or not depends on the Uganda government,” he said adding that their movement was voluntary. UNHCR does not expect the numbers of refugees to rise. They are currently at Nakivale transit centre in southwestern Uganda. The semi-official ‘New Vision’ newspaper on Tuesday said that the refugees fled from Kyerere, Mabira, Nyagatuntu, Nkwenda, Businde and Kayaga. Others had come from Nyeshozi, Nyakayiga, Nahangaro and Murushaka. “We were ordered to leave the Tanzanian land and told to be out by 31 December or we would be removed by maximum force,” it quoted one of the refugees as saying. The paper also quoted a Tanzanian local official as saying that the decision to expel the refugees followed their refusal to go to the refugee camp in Kigoma and register as refugees or pay for Tanzanian citizenship. “These are not nationals of Tanzania. We told them to go in the refugee camp. They defied the directive and we had nothing to do with them,” he said. The refugees, however, noted that they could neither afford the fee nor go to the camp in Kigoma because it was too far and they could not reach it within the five days given.