Kayanza: even the paths are closed to prevent the border population from going to Rwanda

Residents including first and foremost all farmers of the Kabarore commune in Kayanza province (northern Burundi), ask the administration authorities to reopen the paths that were closed. The farmers say these paths normally lead to their fields of crops. The authorities indicate that they have barricaded these paths to prevent any attempt to go and sell the crops in Rwanda. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Farmers are shocked. They are no longer allowed to go to their fruit and vegetable fields.

“The fruits, the vegetables have rotted in the fields. There are fields that need to be weeded. There again, no one is allowed to go and do it. The paths are blocked”, laments a mother of three children.

In extreme poverty as they say, farmers are asking administration officials to reopen these paths leading to the fields.

According to the communal administration, the closure of all the paths was done to reduce fraud to neighboring Rwanda.

“We warn anyone who will be caught selling our products clandestinely in Rwanda,” said a local administrative source.

In several meetings with administrators and residents, senior Burundian authorities, starting with the Head of State, have often accused residents of border areas of selling Burundian harvests to “enemy” Rwanda, calling them “enemies of the nation” and “disruptors of the national economy”.