Mugamba: families from the Batwa community forcibly occupy state property
Around sixty members of the landless Batwa community from the Vyuya hill and zone in the Mugamba commune in Bururi province (southern Burundi) decided to forcibly occupy state land on the same hill from May. Those concerned criticize the administrative authorities of neglect of their grievances.
INFO SOS Médias Burundi
Information collected from Batwa families living on Vyuya Hill indicates that 65 members of them have occupied state land since May this year.
“We expressed our grievances to the municipal authorities asking them to give us land, in vain. It is regrettable to have authorities who are like this,” said a member of this community.
According to another source, the land property that these Batwa forcibly occupied covers an area of three hectares. It contains young eucalyptus plantations.
The community ask administrative officials to allocate land to them as they do for other Burundians.
According to a grassroot administrative source at Vyuya hill, an area where these families can be settled is under study.
The Batwa minority in Burundi faces land problems linked to the system of “serfdom” to which they were subjected for decades.
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A woman from the Batwa community with her child in front of her makeshift house in the commune of Gasorwe in the north-east of Burundi (SOS Médias Burundi)
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