Tanzania : nearly 4,750 Burundian refugees arrested trying to reach other countries in the region in four months

Statistics were revealed by the immigration services in Kakonko district, in the Kigoma region (northwest Tanzania) where the concerned pass. It was this Thursday. According to testimonies of refugees, they want to leave the camps in Tanzania because of the poor living conditions. In all, nearly 4,750 people are concerned. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

According to Tanzanian authorities, it is chiefs of households with young families and their dependents who are apprehended in most cases.

“It is very easy for them to travel by bus transporting goods and people compared to other categories of refugees. And this, over long distances”, estimate our sources.

Arrested Burundians wanted to go to Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, according to immigration services in Kakonko.

“We face very poor living conditions in the camps. Food assistance is insufficient and income-generating activities are banned. We also have difficulty going out to work in the fields of Tanzanians or in the surrounding trading centers. The situation is becoming more and more complicated for us, which is why we want to go elsewhere. The worst: they want to repatriate us by force”, explained the Burundians intercepted in Kakonko to Tanzanian police.

Kakonko, the commune that housed the recently closed Mtendeli refugee camp, remains the only border that Burundians fleeing the camps are forced to cross to reach these countries in the region that they want to reach.

According to our reporters in the Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania, Burundian refugees have not responded massively to voluntary repatriation in recent months. This pushes Tanzanian authorities to toughen the conditions of their life in the camps.

Tanzania remains the first destination for Burundian refugees. It is home to nearly 127,000 Burundians divided into two camps, namely Nduta and Nyarugusu, located in the Kigoma region in the northwest of the country.