Kigali — The UN refugee agency and the World Food Program appealed Tuesday for more money to continue aid assistance for 149,000 Burundian refugees in camps in Tanzania as they return home, RNA reports.
The WFP said without new funds, both the returnee rations and food assistance for 815,000 hungry people in Burundi are in jeopardy. The Agency wants US$20 million to continue its work in Burundi, one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.
In a similar bid, the refugee agency needs $50 for every returnee. Each returnee from the camps in Tanzania receives the equivalent of almost $50 upon arrival to buy essential goods. The initiative was introduced in July.
This essentially means the WFP appeal and that of the UNHCR amount to about $28 million to cover the cash initiative and food for those in the camps.
Some 6,000 Burundian refugees have returned home since the launch of the cash initiative -- more than half of the over 10,000 who have returned home since the beginning of the year.
"We hope that this larger ration will speed up the pace of returns to Burundi this year," Gerard van Dijk - WFP Burundi program director said in Nairobi.
"But unless new contributions arrive now, we will have to cut rations across the board to everyone we assist or face a complete break in supplies in December."
Mr. Van Dijk also noted that it is "particularly worrying that we are in a funding crunch at the same time as the Government of Tanzania is pushing for more refugees to return home. We need to be able to tell families considering a return that they can count on food and other aid to help them."
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UNHCR's Burundi envoy Mr. Bo Schack said the refugees have appreciated the cash grant programme, which boosted returns over the last several weeks.
"In a poor country like Burundi, these cash grants are of crucial importance for those who have to rebuild their lives from zero." he said. "Many returnees use this money to repair their homes which were damaged in the war, or to buy animals or seeds in order to start farming."
Since 2002, more than 340,000 refugees have returned voluntarily to Burundi follozing years of bitter ethnic conflict. The Government of Tanzania is pushing for more refugees to return to Burundi, arguing that the central African nation is now at peace.
Burundi is recovering from more than a decade of civil war. In 1972 and again in 1993, inter-ethnic violence forced hundreds of thousands of Burundians to flee to neighbouring countries. Over three decades, Tanzania has provided refuge to most of these Burundian refugees.
But since a new government in Bujumbura was elected into power, there have been improving prospects of stability despite a single rebel force still holed up in the forests.
Estimates suggest Tanzania hosts nearly half a million refugees, making it one of the largest asylum countries in Africa.
In addition to some 110,000 Congolese refugees, the 149,000 Burundian refugees live in camps in northwestern Tanzania, where they receive assistance from UNHCR and WFP.
According to government estimates, another 200,000 Burundian refugees live outside the camps.
