Bubanza : street children left to a life of survival and insecurity

SOS Médias Burundi

Bubanza, August 18, 2025 – In several urban centers in Burundi, children left to fend for themselves are increasingly visible. Abandoned, orphaned, or fleeing family poverty, they sleep under the stars, beg to survive, and worry local communities. The situation is particularly worrying in Bubanza, in Bujumbura Province (western part of the country).

Every evening, under the verandas of the shops in the Bubanza shopping center, around forty children—or even more, their exact number remaining difficult to determine—sit down on cardboard boxes to spend the night. Without blankets, exposed to the cold and insecurity, these young people live on the margins of society and survive as best they can in extremely precarious conditions.

During the day, they roam restaurants and boarding schools begging for food. Others collect metal objects or plastic bottles to resell. Some even steal poultry or small livestock, which they eat or sell at the local market. Their increasingly visible presence is a cause for concern. “Every month, their numbers increase. It’s become a real security threat,” confides a shopkeeper in the center.

Most of these children are orphans or have fled their families, crushed by poverty. As they grow up, some develop behaviors considered antisocial, which increases the distrust of a portion of the population.

Yet, despite the scale of the phenomenon, district and social services—particularly the provincial Department of Family and Community Development—struggle to take action. A few well-intentioned residents try to help these children reconnect with their families, but these efforts are met with a rapid return to the streets.

Faced with this silent crisis, more and more residents believe that a sustainable social response is needed. For them, it is urgent to give these children a dignified life, far from cardboard boxes and makeshift verandas, before the situation spirals out of control.