Refugees agree to temporary relocation

More than 2,000 Congolese Banyamulenge refugees in Burundi have dropped their refusal to move to another camp in Burundi after the intervention of a senior government official.



The refugees were transferred to Bwagiriza camp in the northeastern Ruyigi province following the closure of a camp in Gihinga, in the central Mwaro province.



“We accepted provisional transfer to Ruyigi after the Burundi First Deputy President [Yves Sahinguvu] assured us that our security would be guaranteed there,” one of the refugees said.



With the closure of the Gihinga camp, the refugees had tried to return home to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, but officials there prevented them from crossing the border. Eastern DRC is the scene of frequent clashes between government forces backed by UN peacekeepers and Rwandan rebels. The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has said the region is too insecure for the refugees to return safely.



According to Sahinguvu, officials from both countries and UNHCR will meet this week to “close the issue of the Congolese Banyamulenge refugees who have accepted transfer to Ruyigi pending a lasting solution to their problems”.



“We agreed to hold a meeting to ensure that preparations to welcome the refugees are moving well in DRC so that the refugees can be well assisted, well secured and well accommodated,” Gen Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni, Burundi Minister of Public Security, said.



DRC Foreign Minister Alexis Tambwe Mwamba, who headed a DRC delegation that visited Burundi over the weekend, said “the frontier will be reopened very soon”.



He said the DRC government had no intention of banning the Banyamulenge refugees from returning to their country. “We only wish that their repatriation be carried out in order; we are now preparing [to improve] conditions for this return,” Mwamba said.



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