Plea for aid for internally displaced

Thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Burundi desperately need humanitarian aid and protection, advocacy group Refugees International (RI) said on Tuesday. "Unlike returning refugees who benefit from supplies from UNHCR [Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees], returning IDPs are not receiving any assistance to facilitate their return home," RI said in a new report. It added that "administrative stalling" and lack of funding within the Burundian government ministries responsible for IDPs were some of the reasons for the "delay in the response to the humanitarian need of the affected people". RI said: "International humanitarian actors have also been plagued with administrative problems. They have not yet reached an agreement about who should play the lead role in assisting and protecting the IDPs." RI urged the government of Burundi to implement a programme for the rehabilitation of basic social services in areas with high numbers of returning IDPs. It also urged the humanitarian community in the country to coordinate with the government so as to determine "which agency should lead in providing material assistance and protection to returning internally displaced persons". Burundi is emerging from a decade-long civil war that pitted the minority Tutsi-dominated government against various Hutu rebel groups. It is currently in the second phase of a three-year transitional period, brokered under a Peace and Reconciliation Accord signed in August 2000 in Arusha, Tanzania. Elections are due to be held by November. Relative peace has been restored in most provinces except in Bujumbura Rural, which surrounds the capital, Bujumbura, where the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) faction led by Agathon Rwasa remains active. [The Refugees International report is available online at: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/cgi-bin/ri/bulletin?bc=00828&spotlight=1 ]