Refugees ready to return rise to 45,000

Up to 45,000 Burundi refugees living in camps in western Tanzania had signed up with the UN refugee agency by Thursday, under a voluntary repatriation scheme, to return home to Burundi. Ivana Unluova, a spokeswoman for the office UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Tanzania , told IRIN on Friday that a maximum of 45,000 had registered with the agency as of Thursday, contrary to news reports that some 80,000 refugees had registered. "That figure is grossly inflated," she said. An official from UNHCR in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, told IRIN on Monday that, tentatively, the first movement of refugees would begin at the end of March. Most of the refugees were returning to the communes of Makamba, in southern Burundi, and Ruyigi in the eastern part of the country, according to the agency. Under a tripartite accord between UNHCR and the governments of Tanzania and Burundi, the UN agency has agreed to assist those refugees who wish to return to Burundi, while not encouraging them to do so. Although large numbers of people have been voluntarily registering for repatriation, the BBC reported on 15 March that observers were saying Tanzania has been showing "signs of tiredness" over sheltering hundreds of thousands of refugees. "This is said to have forced most of the refugees to register for voluntary repatriation instead of being repatriated by force by the Tanzanian government," it added. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that there are over 375,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Burundi, including 194,000 children. The office reports that this figure may exclude a possible further 100,000 IDPs, and possibly more, who have been dispersed following the closure of some regroupment camps and who may have been unable to return to their homes. The next tripartite meeting between representatives from UNHCR and the Tanzanian and Burundi governments is scheduled for 3 and 4 April in Ngara, Kagera District, in western Tanzania, according to the refugee agency. Meanwhile, working meetings are continuing to organise the repatriation and refugees' travel arrangements.