Evidence suggests Congolese refugees going home

Thousands of Congolese refugees appear to be returning home in recent months from the Rugombo transit camp in Burundi's northwestern province of Cibitoke although, after a while, many make the trip back to Burundi. "This constitutes a major difficulty to know exactly how many refugees have returned," Antoine Buzuguri, the governor of Cibitoke, told IRIN on Thursday. "What we do know is that the figures of refugees at Rugombo transit camp have reduced tremendously," he added. The number at Rugombo is now less than 10,000, he said, down from 20,000 in May when most of the refugees fled to Burundi to escape renewed fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has set up Rugombo and other transit camps along DRC-Burundi border as temporary crisis centres. Officials said they were unsure how many of the Rugombo refugees, who are mostly of the Bashis and Bafureros ethnic groups, had "spontaneously returned" to the DRC or had dispersed into town or elsewhere within Burundi. "Figures change from day-to-day," David Short, UNHCR Burundi's public information officer, told IRIN on Thursday. Buzuguri said returnees from Rugombo often went home to the Congo then cross back to Burundi on days that food aid was being distributed. Refugee figures have not reduced at Karurama, another transit camp in Cibitoke, where there are mostly Congolese Tutsis. The numbers there "are still the same" Buzuguri said. Of some 9,000 refugees, he said, no repatriation had been recorded. UNHCR officials are urging refugees to leave their transit camps. They have three options, Short said: "Either they can accept to be relocated in camps [away from the border], or they can return back home, or they can leave the camps and integrate into Burundian society, in which case they no longer receive assistance from the UNHCR." Many who choose to be moved inland go to Gasorwe in the northeastern province of Muyinga. It currently hosts at least 8,000 Congolese refugees. Since July around 5,000 refugees have relocated to Gasorwe, Short said. They came from the Rugombo, Karurama and Gatumba camps as well as from the capital, Bujumbura. "By the beginning of October, all the transit camps are to be closed down," Buzuguri said. But many of the refugees are reluctant to leave. On Tuesday, only 75 of the 6,000 refugees at Rugombo who had registered to go actually went. Hundreds of Congolese Tutsi refugees at the Gatumba camp, who survived a massacre there on 13 August, were moved to a school nearby and they are now reportedly reluctant to leave and go either inland or return to the Congo. New refugee camps are being set up at Mwaro and Rutana. The first refugees are scheduled to arrive in Mwaro on Monday, Short said. It will have the capacity to host around 6,000 refugees. UN humanitarian agencies have express concern about reports of 150,000 people in the east of the Congo being displaced by the latest round of fighting. So far, there are no reports of them having crossed into Burundi.