Thousands affected by drought return home

Some 12,000 Burundians who fled a food crisis caused by a prevailing drought in their country have returned home from neighbouring Tanzania, the governor of Burundi's eastern province of Ruyigi said on Tuesday.

The people started returning on Saturday, Governor Moise Bucumi said. Most of them crossed back into Burundi on foot, as they lived only 3 km from the border. All the transit camps in Tanzania had closed, except for one camp, which hosts Congolese refugees. At least 2,000 of the returnees - who came from other provinces, such as Kirundo, Cankuzo and Gitega - were being hosted at a transit site in Gisuru, Ruyigi Province.

"They will receive food aid today [on Tuesday], and those willing to go home will be transported [by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR)]," he added.

Guillaume Foliot, the programme officer at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Burundi, said the agency would distribute one month's food rations to all returnees beginning on Wednesday and also take care of food requirements in their respective communes during May and June. He said WFP had increased the volume of food aid to Burundi from 5,000 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes. The agency had distributed 1,630 tonnes of food in Ruyigi Province alone since the beginning of 2006.

The repatriation followed a meeting on Friday in Ruyigi of officials from Burundi, Tanzania, WFP and UNHCR. A UNHCR official in charge of protection, France Lau, said all parties had agreed to begin efforts to encourage the Burundians to return home on Saturday, and that UNHCR would provide lorries to transport them on Tuesday. However, most of the displaced had already returned home by Tuesday.

Bucumi denied allegations that they had been forced or threatened to return home. "I received reports that they came voluntarily, and I have no reason to doubt them," he said, adding that Tanzania had no reason to force them out, either. "What interest did it have?" he asked.

The government of Burundi has declared the provinces of Ruyigi, Rutana, Cankuzo, Kirundo and Muyinga hunger-stricken as a result of the prevailing drought. The first group of Burundians fleeing the food crisis crossed into Tanzania in May 2005. More people, especially from Ruyigi, crossed into Tanzania in January 2006. On 22 March, Burundi's minister for solidarity, gender and human rights, Françoise Ngendahayo, visited camps in Tanzania to urge people to return home, promising they would benefit from food distributions in their respective provinces.