UNHCR on Wednesday repatriated 107 Burundian refugees from the DRC to Bujumbura, and additional repatriations are planned for the coming days. In a statement received by IRIN, UNHCR said the operation was the first major repatriation of Burundian refugees in the DRC in almost a year. They included Burundians who had fled civil strife in their home country in 1972, 1991 and 1993. The refugees had subsequently fled the Kivu region in late 1996 due to conflict and had walked some 1,000 km to Mbuji-Mayi, the statement said.
Some 20,000 Burundian refugees are believed to be living in villages across the DRC, the statement said. In a trial repatriation on 30 May, seven Burundian refugees were repatriated from Mbuji-Mayi on a UNHCR-chartered aircraft, the first officially-sanctioned humanitarian flight between the DRC and Burundi since the start of the current conflict in August 1998, the statement added.
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