Gatumba : humanitarian crisis and police violence at the Congolese refugee transit center

SOS Médias Burundi

Bujumbura, December 19, 2025 – Tensions escalated sharply on the evening of Thursday, December 18, 2025, at the Gatumba transit center in Burundi. In the courtyard of the police station, where more than 25,000 Congolese refugees are sheltered, several were violently beaten and arbitrarily detained by security forces, resulting in several injuries and at least one death, according to eyewitness accounts.

The incidents reportedly occurred when the refugees refused to be transferred to other camps, fearing they would face conditions similar to those they are currently denouncing. The majority are demanding a voluntary return to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Refugees claim they are being forcibly detained inside the center and subjected to beatings with sticks and whips during the police intervention.

“This Thursday, they whipped and beat us because we refused to go to camps where we will suffer the same conditions we are living in here,” recounts a refugee, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We are locked up here. We can neither leave nor go to the hospital. We are simply asking to be allowed to go home. Even if the border
remains closed for a long time, at least open it so we can return and escape these conditions.”

Other refugees explain that any attempt to leave the center results in immediate forced return to the center.

An alarming humanitarian crisis

These refugees, who arrived in Burundi less than two weeks ago, fled clashes between the Congolese army and M23 rebels in eastern DRC. They come from Luvungi, Sange, Kiliba, Uvira, and Makobola.

Since settling in Gatumba, not far from the border with the DRC, they have been denouncing extreme famine, the lack of drinking water, medicine, and hygiene products. Food rations are woefully inadequate.

“We are only given one kilo of beans for the entire month. It’s impossible to survive like this,” says Daniel*, a refugee from Kiliba.

“The children are constantly hungry.”

Adding to this situation is a cholera epidemic. According to local sources, more than 47 cases were recorded in a single week.

The Burundian Ministry of Health has officially acknowledged 46 cases of cholera among refugees in Gatumba.

“The sick are dying for lack of care,” says Suzanne, a refugee from Uvira.

“We have neither medicine nor clean water. Fear is constant.”

Patrick, a refugee from Luvungi, explains that he tried to return to the DRC via Tanzania and Rwanda :

“At the embassy, ​​they first asked me for a consular card costing $25, then $50 for a document that serves as a passport. I don’t have that kind of money. I fled with nothing; I don’t even have enough to eat.”

Call for action from civil society organizations

Faced with this situation, several Congolese civil society organizations have issued a cry for help, calling for national and international solidarity.

They demand :

the urgent deployment of a Congolese humanitarian mission;

The opening of a secure humanitarian corridor to allow for the voluntary and dignified return of refugees;

An independent investigation into alleged abuses by the Burundian police;

Immediate international intervention to contain the cholera epidemic.

Regional context

These refugees fled after the M23 seized Uvira on December 9, 2025. Uvira is a city located a few kilometers from Bujumbura, Burundi’s commercial capital, where UN agencies and the central government are concentrated.

Reactivated in 2021, the M23, composed mainly of Congolese Tutsis, has controlled several strategic territories in North and South Kivu, as well as their provincial capitals, since the beginning of the year. Kinshasa accuses Kigali of providing military support, while Rwanda denounces DRC and Burundi’s support for the FDLR, an armed Hutu group implicated in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

These cross-accusations persist despite Washington’s agreement, while Kigali continues to deny any direct support for the M23 and dismisses as “fabrications” the reports of UN experts, which estimate the number of Rwandan soldiers fighting alongside the rebels at between 5,000 and 7,000.

Furthermore, the M23 is now part of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), led by Corneille Nangaa, former president of the Congolese Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), which advocates for a federal state in the DRC. Burundi, for its part, has deployed more than 10,000 soldiers in South Kivu to support the FARDC and the Wazalendo militias allied with the Congolese government.

In less than a month, the small east African nation has already taken in more than 70,000 Congolese refugees fleeing violence in eastern Congo.