Sarah McGregor
10 March 2008
analysis
Dar es Salaam — Justina Bkole (38) was just a toddler when her parents fled to western Tanzania in 1972, to escape ethnic clashes in neighbouring Burundi. Like thousands of other refugees who made the same journey, she stayed in the East African country: a place to which she now has strong ties, even if her roots are in Burundi.
"Here, my children are in school and I have food to eat," said Bkole, a mother of five who manages a small plot thick with tobacco and maize plants. "But still I am a refugee because my home is in Burundi and I was forced to leave."
Now, Burundi will become home again for many refugees, if not Bkole.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has said the time has come to write the final chapter for one the world's most protracted refugee situations: all three settlements established in western Tanzania for the Burundian exiles -- Ulyankulu, Katumba and Mishamo -- will close by 2010. The camps are run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the government of Tanzania.
As a result, the 218,000 exiles, commonly referred to as the "1972 Burundi refugees", and their descendants are being faced with the choice of returning to their homeland or applying for Tanzanian citizenship.
About 80 percent have indicated their willingness to become citizens of Tanzania, according to a U.N. survey, while another 45,000 said they wished to return to Burundi (some are already on their way). A small number may apply for third country resettlement.
Bkole, for one, thinks she will seek naturalisation: "I'm happy here," she replied, when asked about her reasons for staying on.
This is despite the fact that refugees are confined to the camps and must seek special permission to leave -- which means they remain isolated from the locals, and that many have little sense of forming part of Tanzania.
Daily hardship
Life for most people in Tanzania is humble, and the same holds true for the settlements. Jobs are hard to come by, the unemployment rate runs at about 30 percent and only a quarter of the population is enrolled in school.
Refugees scrape by doing odd jobs like tailoring, beekeeping or selling daily staples from ramshackle shops or street side tables.
About half are smallholder farmers who grow a variety of crops -- tobacco, maize, cassava, groundnuts, rice, potatoes and the like -- which are then traded.
Still, those in the settlements enjoy certain benefits, including better medical treatment than nearby Tanzanians.
"The UNHCR is like our parents. They give us love but there are also special laws we must follow," said Thomas Mabruck (44), a volunteer teacher in Ulyankulu and the father of five children aged one to 19.
"A refugee is someone who has left for reasons of war, but now I want to say 'I'm a resident of somewhere'."
The idea of returning to Burundi is a daunting prospect for some, not least because they will have a safety net pulled from under them.
"Here life is very fine," said an elderly farmer who gave only the name Ananais. "If they don't give me citizenship (in Tanzania), where will I go? I will die. I have no options."
Efforts have been made to provide at least some options, however: those going back to Burundi will get a one off allowance of about 42 dollars and a six-month food ration -- although no guarantee of land.
Another problem may come in the form of language. Most refugees speak Tanzania's national language, Kiswahili, fluently; but far fewer understand Burundi's national language: French.
Funds needed
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, on a four-day visit to Tanzania this week, has appealed for 34 million dollars to relocate this refugee population -- a group that has slipped off the international radar, to a certain extent. Even more funds will be needed, he says, in the effort to resettle people and offer basic social services.
On Sunday, Guterres saw off the first group of 252 refugees, some of them children of those who fled Burundi more than 35 years ago, from the Katumba settlement.
"There is no place like home," he said, cheered on by performers and well wishers who gathered to give a boisterous farewell at the railway station from which the exiles were leaving. "It is not good for one to remain a refugee forever."
Cassian Benedict, a 26-year-old father of two, said he plans to move to Burundi, the homeland of his parents, in October.
When he was shown a map of the Central African nation he could not point to exactly where he will go, but seemed undaunted by this.
"I was born a refugee and so were my kids, but it is not too late for us," said Benedict, standing in a church in Katumba. "We'll make a better life there. I'm not worried even a little."
Tanzania hosts another 206,500 refugees who fled more recent conflicts in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kikwete has asked those housed in camps in the north-west of Tanzania to leave voluntarily by year end.
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