Four boys rescued from human trafficking between Burundi and Tanzania

SOS Médias Burundi
Rumonge, October 3, 2025 — Four teenagers from southern Burundi were repatriated on Monday after falling victims to a human trafficking network operating between Burundi and Tanzania. These events confirm the existence of networks targeting young people from poor families to exploit them in inhumane conditions.

The survivors are Fabrice Niyonzima (17 years old), Fiston Ntunzwenimana (17 years old), Jean Marie Bayubahe (15years old), and Elvis Irunva (17 years old), originally from the Rumonge region in Burunga province. They were part of a group of eleven teenagers recruited in late August by a woman identified as Zubeda Munezero Mariam, residing in the Birimba neighborhood of Rumonge. She allegedly took them to a town in the Kigoma region, in northwest Tanzania, bordering Burundi, where they were forced to work in crop fields in conditions deemed inhumane.

According to testimonies collected by SOS Médias Burundi, the youths were subjected to torture and arbitrary detention in an attempt to intimidate them and prevent them from claiming their wages. Four of them managed to alert local authorities, enabling their repatriation with the support of the Tanzanian police. The other seven teenagers remain missing.

Upon their return to Rumonge, the families filed a complaint against the alleged recruiter, who was arrested and taken into custody at the provincial police station. The Burundian police have opened an investigation to identify possible accomplices and have not ruled out cross-border cooperation to find the other youths and dismantle the network.