The full paper, "'I Don't Know Where to Go': Burundian Refugees in
Tanzania Under Pressure to Leave,"
http://www.refugee-rights.org/Publications/Papers/2009/I%20Dont%20Know%20Where%20to%20Go.091709.pdf
and the previous paper, "Going Home or Staying Home? Ending Displacement
for Burundian Refugees in Tanzania
http://www.refugee-rights.org/Publications/2008/Going%20Home%20or%20Staying%20Home_%20Ending%20Displacement%20for%20Burundian%20Refugees%20in%20Tanzania.pdf"
are available online at http://www.refugee-rights.org
Contact: Dismas Nkunda, Co-Director, International Refugee Rights
Initiative, +256 75 331 0404
****
*Burundian Refugees under a Deadline to Leave Tanzania*
(Kampala, 17 September 2009) Less than two weeks from the date of the
announced closure of Tanzania's last refugee camp for Burundians, the
Centre for the Study of Forced Migration and the International Refugee
Rights Initiative launched a report, "'I Don't Know Where to Go':
Burundian Refugees in Tanzania Under Pressure to Leave"
http://www.refugee-rights.org/Publications/Papers/2009/I%20Dont%20Know%20Where%20to%20Go.091709.pdf
The paper, based on two weeks of field research conducted in August and
building on previous research ("Going Home or Staying Home? Ending
Displacement for Burundian Refugees in Tanzania"), outlines serious
concerns over the protection of Burundian refugees: once the camp is
closed, approximately 30,000 refugees will be effectively homeless. The
increasing pressure to repatriate, as judged by recent government
rhetoric, combined with a clear reticence on the part of refugees to
return, is calling into question the voluntary nature of the exercise.
Meanwhile the outcome of a special scheme to offer naturalisation to a
specific group of Burundian refugees – those who fled in 1972 – remains
unclear.
Therefore the paper seeks to address two questions: why are refugees
reluctant to return? And how can a fair policy be constructed which
balances legitimate concerns of the Tanzanian government with the needs
of Burundi's transition and applicable human rights frameworks?
Although many refugees want to go home, they are reluctant to return at
this time. There are a number of reasons for this, most dominantly the
impact of stories that have filtered through of the dire circumstances
in which many returnees in Burundi have found themselves. In the words
of one refugee, "those of 1972 who have gone back were told that there
are peace villages, but these villages are not there." Others were born
and have lived their entire lives in Tanzania, making accessing family
land or other community support in Burundi difficult. "I didn’t
repatriate because I don’t know where to go. I was born in Tanzania and
I do not know Burundi," said another refugee. Others cited personal
security concerns related to crimes they had experienced or witnessed.
For those who are unwilling to return, workable solutions must be found.
Any aggressive pursuit of repatriation is likely to not only undermine
the protection of refugees, but also to have a suboptimal geopolitical
outcome in the long term. "Despite progress in establishing peace in
Burundi, the government is clearly having considerable trouble
effectively reintegrating returnees," said Dismas Nkunda, Co-Director of
the International Refugee Rights Initiative, "pushing for return in
conditions where basic needs cannot be met undermines not only the
rights of returnees, but Burundi's transition as a whole." In this
context, the report argues that both the timing of the current push for
repatriation, as well as the possibility of alternatives to
repatriation, need to be explored expediently.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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