Hundreds more flee as conflict escalates, UN agency says

A recent influx of some 900 Burundians into Tanzania brings refugee arrivals to at least 3,000 in September, the office of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday. It said this represented a nearly a 10-fold increase from August. Most of the refugees had fled "after a period of internal displacement", the agency reported, while others who had previously been in Tanzanian refugee camps and gone home only to find themselves having to flee the current fighting between government and rebel forces. A UNHCR report from Kibondo, Tanzania, near the border with Burundi, said many of the new arrivals were in poor health, "with children showing signs of malnutrition". The refugees had said the fighting between the army and the rebels had escalated, and that some soldiers had burnt down their homes after accusing them of complicity with the rebels. Meanwhile, the flow of Burundian returnees had dropped dramatically, the UNHCR spokesman, Kris Janowski, said on Tuesday in Geneva. In recent weeks, he said, an average of 600 refugees had gone home each week, compared to up to 1,500 per week a few months ago. At least 45,000 Burundian refugees have returned home since the beginning of the year, 25,000 of them with UNHCR help. The agency has maintained that it is only facilitating the return of refugees to relatively safe parts of northern Burundi. Tanzania was hosting some 350,000 Burundian refugees in camps, UNHCR reported, with nearly 500,000 others living on their own outside the camps.