BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Joint delegation to seek repatriation of Burundian refugees

NAIROBI, 26 Jun 2002 (IRIN) - Burundi and Tanzania announced on Tuesday that they would send a delegation to Geneva to ask the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to facilitate the repatriation of all Burundian refugees now in Tanzanian.

The announcement was made at a news conference after the end of the fourth tripartite meeting in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, between Burundi, Tanzania and the office of the UNHCR on the refugee repatriation issue.

Close to 500,000 Burundian refugees are camped in Tanzania, thousands of who have been returning home on their own or under UNHCR-sponsored operations. However, the UNHCR position is to facilitate repatriations only to safe areas, while extending "limited assistance" to refugees insisting on going elsewhere in Burundi.

Under its programme of facilitated repatriation, UNHCR registers refugees, provides them with going-home packages, money and drugs, and organises their transport. The operations have been directed at Burundians returning to the north of the country, as opposed to the east and south, where fighting between Hutu rebels and government troops continue.

Burundi was represented at the one-day tripartite meeting by its minister in charge of resettlement of internally displaced persons and refugees, Francoise Ngendahayo, and Tanzania by its interior minister, Mohamed Khatib. Stefano Severe, the UNHCR delegate to Burundi, represented the agency.

[ENDS]