Refugees in Tanzania signing up to go home

Numbers of Burundi refugees who have signed up with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to go home from camps in Tanzania have risen significantly, a UNHCR spokeswoman told IRIN on Monday. Between the second week of February, when a new registration process was established, and 7 March, 16,000 people had signed up, Ivana Unluova told IRIN. By comparison, during the whole of 2001, only 2,700 refugees had been assisted to return, she added. "It is, however, important to differentiate between those who said that they are willing to return, and those who will actually go," Unluova cautioned. UNHCR attributes the upsurge in interest to a number of factors, including the three recent missions to Tanzania by representatives of the Burundi government to encourage the refugees to return, the "increased cross-border information exchange", the mounting pressure from the Tanzanian government on the refugees to return, and the "general atmosphere and media reports" in Tanzania making the refugees feel unwelcome. Apart from numbers wishing to return home, there had also been a marked drop in the numbers of Burundi arrivals at camps in western Tanzania, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest report - "Affected Populations in the Great Lakes Region" - released last week. During the first half of 2001, monthly arrivals from Burundi in Tanzania had averaged 2,000, OCHA reported. Despite continuing, and in some cases intensified, fighting within Burundi since October 2001, the numbers had dropped to 400 per month. Space in the existing camps is at a premium, OCHA reports, and the Tanzanian government has proved reluctant to allocate additional, feasible sites. One new site allocated near Ilagola, in the Rukwa Region and some 150 km south of existing refugee sites, would require road and bridge infrastructure to be developed, in order to create access to the area. OCHA refers to the "tough new stance" taken by the Tanzanian government towards the Burundi caseload of refugees in particular. It refers to the "four-kilometre rule", which restricts refugee movement to the immediate environs of the camps - thus reducing access to firewood, agricultural projects and employment prospects - and the order issued last September by the Ngara district commissioner that all refugees residing or working in villages without valid documentation must go to designated camps. As a result, over 1,700 Burundi nationals were forcibly brought to camps in Ngara and Kigoma in December 2001 and January 2002. "In the light of the Tanzanian government's public statements, which make clear a reluctance to continue hosting refugees, as well as the government of Burundi's claim that the country is now safe for return, there is considerable fear among Burundi refugees that the decision to repatriate may not be their own," OCHA adds.