Nduta : a Burundian refugee murdered

Joseph Minani, 38 years old, was found dead in a field of sweet potatoes and cassava on Sunday afternoon. Circumstances of his death remain undetermined, according to the police. But his wife says he was killed by Tanzanians.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The body of Joseph Minani was discovered around 4 p.m. outside the Burundian refugee camp of Nduta in Tanzania.

It is Tanzanian citizens who found him.

“Next to the body were two machetes, a bow and a bag full of cassava,” said a Tanzanian from the town of Kumushasha, not far from the Nduta camp. Circumstances of the death of this Burundian refugee are not yet known. But according to Tanzanians, fights often break out between refugees and residents. Our sources say that the main reasons are banditry in cropfields, conflicts over firewood and non-payment of salaries reserved for refugees.

The police recovered the body before transferring it to the camp hospital so that his family could identify him.

The wife of the deceased claims that “my husband was murdered by Tanzanians that I could not identify”. At the time of the tragedy, she was with her husband.

Several couples go outside the camp to work in the Tanzanian cropfields to get “money that allows them to buy food to supplement insufficient rations they are given”.

Refugees who spoke to SOS Médias Burundi are asking Tanzanian authorities to find a solution to the altercations between Burundian refugees and Tanzanian citizens, which are at the origin of assassinations and forced disappearances.

The police in the Kigoma region (northwest Tanzania) where the Nduta camp is located speak of at least 13 refugees killed each year and about twenty others who are reported missing in the same period. Political motives, insecurity and banditry are the main reasons for these tragedies. Burundian refugees call on the UNHCR and Tanzanian authorities to ensure their security instead of “forcing us to repatriate”.

Nduta is a Burundian refugee camp that hosts more than 60,000 people. Its occupants fled for the most part the 2015 crisis that was triggered by another controversial term of the late President Pierre Nkurunziza.

A Burundian refugee in a cropfield outside the Nduta camp in Tanzania (SOS Médias Burundi)