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Refugee camp to stay open despite threats of closure

    DAR ES SALAAM

    Mkugwa refugee camp in western Tanzania is to remain open, despite recent reports that it would be closed by the end of March, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday.

    "We have been told that the camp still has its function, and will remain open for refugees," Ivana Unluova, the UNHCR spokeswoman in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, told IRIN.

    Humanitarian sources had said on 2 March that the Kibondo district commissioner had told refugees in the camp - a special protection facility for mixed-marriage Congolese, Burundian and Rwandan refugees - that it would be closed by 1 April.

    Officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs were not immediately available to comment on the matter.

    The camp hosts some 2,000 refugees of mixed Hutu-Tutsi marriage.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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