UN agency expresses concern over refugees

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed concern on Tuesday that thousands of Burundian refugees returning home from Tanzanian camps may not be doing so voluntarily. In a statement, the agency said that many of those who were going back home had complained that the level of food aid in the Tanzanian camps had steadily declined. About 5,000 refugees have returned to Burundi, nearly one month after the installations of a new president in the country, the agency reported. It said the number of refugees who returned in May was the highest so far in 2003. "Some 4,000 Burundian refugees have gone home on their own to southern provinces in Burundi despite the prevailing insecurity in provinces such as Ruyigi and Makamba," the agency reported. It added that another 700 were helped home to northern Burundi on UNHCR-organised convoys. Local authorities in camps in Kibondo district, western Tanzania, have imposed new restrictions on refugees' movements, citing security concerns, the UNHCR said. It added that the refugees were now confined to the camps. "Many of the Burundian refugees who would normally supplement their food by going out to work in nearby farms are now unable go beyond the immediate vicinity of the camps and are wholly dependent on food aid," the agency said. Before these restrictions, the refugees had been allowed refugees to move freely within a four-kilometre radius of the camps. Food rations were reduced by half at the beginning of 2003, but were restored to 72 percent of normal rations in April, UNHCR reported. It said that there were fears that the restrictive measures would affect, in particular, some 35,000 Burundian refugees who have sought asylum in Tanzania since the beginning of 2002. In March 2002, UNHCR signed an agreement with the governments of Burundi and Tanzania to aid the return of refugees who were willing to return to the relatively safe northern provinces of Burundi. The agency said that its convoys continued to transport returnees to the northern provinces of Muyinga, Kirundo, Ngozi, Karuzi, Gitega, Kayanga and Bujumbura Mairie. So far, the UNHCR said, more than 43,000 Burundians have been assisted home, 9,965 of them in 2003. At least 12,000 Burundians have returned home, mainly to the south, on their own, the agency added.