12 December 2007
Bujumbura — Burundian refugees will be granted substantial assistance when they regain their native country. The UNHCR and the UNICEF have received funds from the European Union estimated at 16 billion francs. This money will be used to give assistance to returnees starting in the year 2008. UNICEF will build schools for the returnees while the UNHCR will build houses. UNHCR will grant the return package as well as judicial assistance to returnees. More than 125,000 returnees will be affected by the programme which will span on two years.
On 3rd December 2007, members of the tripartite namely, Burundi, Tanzania and UNHCR, met in Bujumbura in their 12th session to analyse the feasibility of repatriating more than 120,000 refugees from Tanzania in the first semester of the year 2008. The three sides reached no fundamental agreement. The government of Burundi is faced with a shortage of financial assets to assist such a number of returnees. The Tanzanian government is convinced that there is peace in Burundi and finds no reason for Burundians to remain in refugees camps.
Since 2002 when the repatriation programme started after the Arusha peace accord for Burundi that was struck in 2000, the UNHCR has given assistance to more than 320,000 Burundians who returned from Tanzanian refugees camps.
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