Nyarugusu (Tanzania) : two Burundian refugees kidnapped

Two refugees were both kidnapped by people in vehicles with tinted windows in different places in one week. Their families are worried. The incident took place in the Nyarugusu camp in Tanzania.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The first is called Jean Marie Nitereka, originally from Muyinga province (northeast Burundi). He lives in zone 13, village 9. He was kidnapped on Tuesday, September 10, not far from the camp in a trading center in the Tanzanian village of Makele, bordering the Nyarugusu camp.

“He was just in front of a stand where he was buying corn grains when people who have not yet been identified forced him into a vehicle parked right next to it. He tried to call for help, in vain,” witnesses report.

The vehicle was later identified as that of “Tanzanian intelligence,” according to our sources.

“Given how he was kidnapped and knowing the brutality of these intelligence people, we fear the worst,” Burundian refugees add.

Jean Marie was providing paid transport on his bicycle at the Nyarugusu camp.

The second is also from the same zone 13. He is known as Yunusu Bayubahe. He was taken from his home during the first week of September and his family was ordered not to say anything.

“That is why we were afraid to report his case, fearing reprisals. But since a week has just passed without news of him, we are breaking the silence,” his neighbors indicate.

The said Yunusu is nevertheless suspected of collaborating with “elements who come from Burundi to track us here in the camp,” they surprisingly said. “He has also been seen several times in Muyinga, his region of origin and was detained there last year, then released before reappearing in the Nyarugusu camp,” they add.

The two families have crisscrossed all the dungeons of the Nyarugusu camp, but “without trace of ours,” we learned.

They are asking the UNHCR to get involved in these two cases to find these refugees whose lives they fear for.

Forced disappearances are resurfacing in this Burundian refugee camp after a period of calm.

Nyarugusu is home to more than 110,000 refugees, including more than 50,000 Burundians.

——-

Young bikers chat in a street at the Nyarugusu camp in Tanzania (SOS Médias Burundi)