Funds available but UN refugee agency not yet ready to promote repatriation, official says

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has released the funds for the ongoing repatriation of Burundian refugees but it is not yet in a position to promote repatriation, the agency's assistant high commissioner, Kamel Morjane, said on Wednesday. Ending a weeklong mission to Tanzania and Burundi, he said at a news conference in Dar es Salaam that UNHCR's budgetary planning body had released "at least" US $7 million for repatriation operations until the end of June. A second repatriation period, from July through to the end of 2005, is also being planned although there are no exact figures as the appeal has not yet been launched, he said. "The money issue has been solved and I don't think that it will be a major problem," he added. Prior to Morjane's announcement, aid workers had said that the UNHCR headquarters had been reluctant to release extra funding for the operation, arguing that the money should come from the existing budgets. As a result, observers said, the operations risked falling short of the minimum humanitarian standards. According to UNHCR figures, 27,000 Burundians have returned since the beginning of 2004 and, by May, the agency hopes to be facilitating the return of at least 4,000 refugees a week. The latest wave of repatriation follows the successful implementation of a ceasefire agreement signed in November 2003 between the government and the main former rebel movement, ending a decade of conflict and renewing hope for the 311,000 Burundians still living in camps in Tanzania. However, citing some "hesitations" on the political side, Morjane said UNHCR was not in a position to encourage refugees to go home at this stage. "Although the situation is better, it is not yet perfect and sustainable," he said. "We can't push them back to Burundi. We can just accompany and facilitate them." He added that in another "positive and unexpected" development, he had found that many Congolese of the 150,000 refugees living in Tanzania were also ready to return. "UNHCR is now looking at how to reactivate the tripartite agreements that have already been signed and by June, I hope that the first meeting of the tripartite commission will take place to decide the methodology of the repatriation," he said. Tanzania hosts at least 460,000 refugees in camps along the border it shares with Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, countries that have all experienced conflict during the last decade.