Demonstration ends in front of UNHCR headquarters

Some 150 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ended a sit-in on Friday in front of the headquarters of the UN refugees agency in Burundi, UNHCR. However, they vowed to continue their demands for aid from the agency while refusing to go to designated refugee camps. "We fear we may be killed [at the camps] just as Congolese Tustis were killed in Gatumba," Bernard Amegiindra-Gere, a representative of the refugee, told IRIN. He was referring to an attack on a camp near the DRC border in August 2005 in which at least 152 Congolese civilians were killed and another 106 wounded. The UNHCR representative in Burundi, Neyaga-Kaba Guichard, said the refugees must go to government-designated camps in order to get aid. UNHCR, he said, would provide them with protection as well as food, free medical care, education and assistance to create income-generating activities. About 20,000 Congolese refugees are living in urban areas in Burundi, UNHCR's assistant public information officer, Didier Bukuru, told IRIN. UNHCR only provides them with assistance for six months, he said. If they choose to remain in cities they must do so on their own. Bukuru said UNHCR had brought in lorries to transport any of the refugees at the sit-in willing to go to the camps but all of them refused. He said UNHCR had also suggested taking refugees representatives to see the camps "to show them that refugees are living in good conditions". UNHCR said there are at least 7,000 Congolese refugees in Gasorwe Camp, in northwestern Burundi's Muyinga Province, and 2,000 others in a camp in Mwaro Province.