Tanzania : camp closures extended, another month of impending ordeal

SOS Médias Burundi

Kigoma, April 2, 2026 — The Burundian refugee camps of Nduta and Nyarugusu, initially scheduled to close on March 31 and June 30, 2026, respectively, will remain open for another month. Presented as a logistical measure to better organize returns, this extension is experienced by the refugees as a worsening of their daily suffering.

In Nduta, where the closure was supposed to take place on March 31, the majority of the dwellings have been demolished by Tanzanian police and civilian guards. The refugees are now living in makeshift, often overcrowded, sheds, transformed into waiting centers before a repatriation that many describe as forced.

In Nyarugusu, a large part of the camp was also destroyed, in an effort to force Burundians to return to their country, sometimes against their will.

According to sources close to the matter, the decision to extend the deadlines by one month was made at a meeting of the tripartite commission held in mid-March in Nairobi, Kenya, bringing together the Burundian and Tanzanian governments as well as the UNHCR. Participants acknowledged that the initial deadlines were difficult to meet due to logistical constraints and resistance on the ground.

The spokesperson for the Burundian Ministry of the Interior and Public Security, Pierre Nkurikiye, referred to a massive influx of returnees :

“We had planned for a return rate of 3,000 people per week, but we have received up to 9,000. Even though we must accommodate them, our logistical capacity is sometimes overwhelmed.” “We are doing everything we can to transfer them to their families, to their ancestral villages,” he declared during a public broadcast of state institution spokespeople held in Kayanza, in the north of the country, on March 27.

According to him, more than 60,000 Burundians have already returned since the beginning of the year. He acknowledged that repatriating more than 145,000 refugees in just a few months remains a complex undertaking, thus justifying the extension of the deadlines in order to comply with international standards.

But on the ground, refugees are denouncing a very different reality, as our reporters on the ground were able to observe.

“I just spent two weeks in the ruins of my former home with my family of five, because there was no room in an overcrowded waiting center. Is this what they call international standards?” testified a refugee from the Nduta camp.

According to several sources, at least five children have already died in these precarious conditions.

Essential services are severely disrupted. In Nyarugusu, two hospitals have been closed. In Nduta, six out of nine primary schools have ceased operations, leaving only one secondary school functioning. Thousands of children are thus deprived of education, while access to healthcare is becoming increasingly limited.

The humanitarian situation has deteriorated further with the suspension of food aid by the NGO World Vision in Nyarugusu. This decision follows the removal of hundreds of refugees from the beneficiary lists for March, with the aim of forcing them to return.

“We cannot accept that refugees are being deprived of assistance while they are still in the camp,” said staff members of the organization.

According to several community leaders, the authorities have invested more in destroying homes than in preparing for returns, particularly in terms of transportation and reintegration kits.

“Today, they seem overwhelmed by their own timeline, despite the level of pressure exerted in recent months,” one of them observes.

One more month, one ordeal too many

For Burundian refugees, this extension is no relief.

“This decision doesn’t help us. It only prolongs our suffering. We are abandoned,” they denounce.

Some are calling for a suspension of the ongoing process and the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure, while local leaders urge the UNHCR to strengthen its protection and the international community to uphold the principle of non-refoulement.

Tanzania still hosts more than 100,000 Burundian refugees, the majority of whom fled the 2015 crisis linked to the controversial third term of President Pierre Nkurunziza, who died suddenly a few months before the end of his term, shortly after the election that brought his successor, Évariste Ndayishimiye, to power. Their future remains more uncertain than ever.