Dzaleka : the UNHCR’s prolonged absence endangers thousands of refugees

SOS Médias Burundi

Dzaleka, Malawi, February 28, 2026 – The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Dzaleka camp has been closed for more than three months, leaving thousands of refugees, many of them Burundians, in a precarious and worrying situation.

A source on the ground could not specify the exact date of the office’s closure but recalled that the UNHCR had been inoperative since November 2025. “It’s unacceptable. People kept queuing, believing the office would reopen at any moment. They didn’t leave any notes,” it explained.

The camp administration informed the refugees that all requests previously addressed to the UNHCR could now be processed by them. According to camp officials, “UN staff have been called in to reinforce other sites for urgent matters.”

For the refugees who spoke to SOS Médias Burundi, this argument is insufficient. “The UNHCR must be taking care of our lives in the camp full-time,” they assert. They point to several difficulties that the administration is struggling to resolve :

Security : night patrols conducted by civilian guards have disappeared, allowing crime to escalate.

Transparency : the allocation of plots in the camp is considered opaque and susceptible to corruption.

Essential services : the issuance of birth certificates and the registration of new arrivals remain inadequate without UNHCR oversight.

Refugees are also concerned about the departure of other humanitarian organizations a few months before the UNHCR’s closure, including Plan International, the Red Cross, Hunger Fighters, and UBUNTU, a local NGO supported by the UNHCR. In June 2025, the UNHCR announced it was running out of resources and that support would cease within two months.

Today, the Dzaleka camp, built to accommodate approximately 10,000 people, shelters more than 50,000 refugees, including over 11,000 Burundians. Residents are calling on the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva to intervene quickly to avoid a humanitarian and security vacuum that could have serious consequences.

“We fear that the UNHCR will leave for good, like other humanitarians before it. It is time for Geneva to hear our distress,” insists a community leader.