Thousands of refugees return home

At least 10,000 Burundian refugees have returned home since January from camps in Tanzania, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Wednesday. The agency said 9,125 refugees returned home in UNHCR-organised movements while another 897 returned on their own. It said 5,200 of the refugees returned through a new border crossing point at Gisuru opened in late January, which had allowed the UNHCR to organise returns to Burundi's eastern province of Ruyigi, which was previously inaccessible for security reasons. "Given the success of the returns through Gisuru so far, and the interest among the refugees to return home to Ruyigi, UNHCR is increasing the number of weekly convoys along this route to four starting this week," the agency reported. "Each convoy transports around 1,000 refugees back home." It said refugees staying in camps in the Ngara region, northern Tanzania, had been returning in twice-weekly convoys through other border crossing point at Kobero in Burundi's northeastern province of Muyinga. UNHCR said it planned to continue the convoys for some 1,000 refugees per week, that will bring the total weekly returns to 5,000. A third crossing point at Gahumo is used for refugees from Burundi's Cankuzo Province. Over 500 refugees have returned with UNHCR's help through this crossing point in 2004. UNHCR reported that at least 300,000 Burundian refugees were still in Tanzanian camps.