Thousands of IDPs return home

An estimated 27,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have returned to their homes in rural areas around Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, since Saturday, a development that local administrators attributed to improved security in the province. "The people have been voluntarily asking to return," Félicien Ntahombaye, the administrator of the commune of Kabezi, told IRIN. "They have been going to work in their farms, finding each time that security was improving." Bujumbura Rural Province, which surrounds the capital, Bujumbura, is the stronghold of the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) faction led by Agathon Rwasa, the only rebel group that is still fighting the transitional government of Burundi. Four other rebel movements have signed ceasefire agreements with the government and joined government institutions. Despite calm being restored in almost all other parts of the country, fighting has continued intermittently in Bujumbura Rural, particularly in the commune of Kabezi. For the last eight months, most of the IDPs had been living at a site in Kabezi town, 20 km southeast of Bujumbura. The massive return followed a meeting on Friday of administrative officials and the IDPs' representatives, who found that there was no reason for the IDPs not to return home. By Monday, only 3,000 IDPs, mostly people whose homes were completely destroyed, were still at the Kabezi site. It has been three months since fighting between the FNL and government forces was reported in Kabezi. Army spokesman Maj Adolphe Manirakiza said FNL combatants and their leaders, including Rwasa and his spokesman, Pasteur Habimana, had retreated to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and to the Rukoko Natural Reserve in Bujumbura Rural, bordering the DRC. Their retreat, he said, followed swift attacks by the army and fighters loyal to the Conseil national de la defense de la democratie–Forces de defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) of Pierre Nkurunziza. However, Habimana told a local radio station that the FNL combatants and their leaders were still at Kanyosha, south of Bujumbura, and in Kabezi. The governor of Bujumbura Rural, Ignace Ntawembarira, attributed the IDPs' return home to a significant improvement in security in Kabezi. However, Ntawembarira said the returnees needed food and non-food relief until they harvested the crops in their fields and rebuilt their homes. The IDPs' return home occurred as the International Rescue Committee (IRC) was about to complete the construction of a more viable site for them. According to the architect in charge of the project, five quarters, including 20 hangars, eight kitchens, eight bathrooms and eight toilets, are under construction.