20 September 2007
Bujumbura — The government of Burundi has finally begun to transfer the Congolese refugees who were camped nearby the United Nations High Commission for Refugees' offices in Bujumbura.
These refugees, who are for the most part of the Bafulero and Banyamulenge ethnicities, will be temporally hosted in the Musasa transit camp located in the Kiremba commune of Ngozi province. Five hundred refugees were transferred to Musasa today.
These refugees had been living on a football pitch in unsanitary conditions for the past two months. Diseases caused by the unhygienic circumstances had already claimed the life of one child. The refugees have been asking the UNHCR to transfer them to another camp where they could be assisted. The inertia of the Burundian administration had, however, delayed the process of registration up to this point.
These refugees will be transferred to Rutana province after the construction of a camp capable of hosting thirty thousand refugees is completed. This new wave of Congolese refugees pouring into Burundi began in July of this year. At that time, raids were first being reported in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. These raids have not abated and continue to send refugees fleeing into Burundi.
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