Red Cross supplies arrive in Makamba

Red Cross relief supplies have begun to reach thousands of people displaced by armed clashes in southern Burundi’s Makamba province. Up to 30,000 people may have fled their homes in January after a series of attacks on communes in which 180 people reportedly died and many homes were torched, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement. Last week most were returning to their hills along the Tanzanian border. The Federation and Burundi Red Cross were assessing their needs after trucking in more than six mt of soap, shelter materials and blankets. “Our greatest concern is for those who lost their homes in the burning,” Jean-Charles Dupin, head of the Federation’s Burundi delegation, said in the statement. While internal displacements continue, some 5,000 Burundi refugees have fled into Tanzania since August, UNHCR told IRIN. On 7 January, 18 new arrivals in Kigoma were taken to hospital with bullet wounds and land mine injuries.