afrol News, 19 June - As the Tanzanian government has increased its pressure on Burundian refugees to repatriate, there are growing concerns over the UN's capacity to protect them. The UN refugee agency UNHCR is under enhanced critique.

It is the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide protection and search for solutions for refugees. This is often difficult, especially in countries that are bent on coercing refugees to return home, "a situation in which Burundian refugees in Tanzania now find themselves," according to the group Refugees International (RI).

Also the UNHCR office in Tanzania recently had complained about Tanzanian government pressure to repatriate Burundian refugees although the situation in Burundi is all but safe and calm.

Last year, repatriation seemed to be possible and durable for Burundian refugees. However, and contrary to UN expectations, the flow of refugees from Burundi to Tanzania not only continues, it is now greater than the movement home.

Fighting in some areas of Burundi has intensified since January, causing a flow of new arrivals to Tanzania. UNHCR estimates more than 15,000 new arrivals from Burundi in the past twelve months, dashing expectations that most Burundian refugees would be able to go home by now.

- Instead, Tanzania's 357,000 refugees in camps along the Burundian border face increasing impoverishment and insecurity, RI says in a statement published yesterday. "These factors unfortunately combine with apathy and neglect from the international community."

UNHCR continues to facilitate voluntary repatriation from Tanzania back home to Burundi, but those who accept the ride and food package are said to be few.

Some refugees return spontaneously, without UNHCR assistance, "but this kind of return seems to have little to do with the situation in Burundi, and rather more to do with the dire situation in the Tanzanian camps," says RI. "UNHCR must be more vigorous in pursuing its protection mandate for refugees until they are able to go home, and must be an advocate for refugees to ensure their rights," the US-based group says.

RI reports from the reality in the camps after having been on an assessment mission to Tanzania:
- After fleeing overland to Tanzania with two of her children, 28-year-old Colette spoke with Refugees International in an arrival centre. Colette crossed into Tanzania in early April, joining the 8,000 Burundians who had also come since January. She explained how she hurriedly left her home after the Burundian army came to her house one night and took her husband away. Colette is from one of the southern provinces that have not seen peace during the ten-year conflict in Burundi.

- Like Colette, many of the new arrivals had spent several months living in the bush before crossing the border, some arriving without their families intact, and many arriving seriously malnourished. "We are seeing a very significant increase in malnutrition among new arrivals, [as] there are immediate admittances to therapeutic feeding services," an international medical officer told RI.

- The refugees now arrive in camps where food rations have been cut because of the lack of donor funding. This cut is especially significant because food is the currency of the camps. Refugees use their rations to trade for essential non-food items since UNHCR stopped regular distribution of non-food essentials, in some cases as long as six years ago, also due to lack of funding. Refugees cope by trading with local Tanzanians and working on local farms where they are paid in crops.

- The second misfortune for the new arrivals is that, since January, they now arrive in camps operating under new restrictions imposed by the Tanzanian government. These restrictions reduce the coping mechanisms that refugees have adopted. Arbitrarily imposed by local officials, restrictions on refugee movement include: household curfews between 8 pm and 6 am; no movement of refugees outside some camps, and other camps' perimeters; no permits for any refugee to travel outside some camps, including for medical emergencies; and arrests of refugees who are travelling with issued permits.

- To both humanitarian aid agencies and to the refugees themselves, the restrictions seem to be part of a deliberate strategy to make conditions in the camps intolerable. "There are many ways to encourage 'voluntary' repatriation," an NGO worker told RI. By now there is such a build-up of negative press statements about the refugees that, "Whatever happens to the refugees, this [Tanzanian] society thinks they deserve [it]." As another humanitarian worker speculated, "Donors and the government are playing the same game, tightening the screws, and saying, 'Why don't you go home?'"

- There is enormous pressure on this refugee population - from the governments of Tanzania and Burundi, from international agencies, and now from the local population - to go home. One refugee woman who has lived in the camps for seven years told RI," When you are here, you live for the time being. You don't prepare for the future. You cannot prepare for the future. You just make children without preparing their life. You cannot save something," she said.

- Numerous UN employees conveyed to RI their concern for the accumulated stress on the refugee population. They feel the situation the refugees have been put in is unliveable. "Insecurity is always there. People fight because of firewood, everything," a World Food Program officer said. "The pain is there."

- There is also a shocking lack of protection for the refugees who must live in these camps. Muyuvosi Camp, which hosts a population of approximately 40,000 Burundian refugees, has one UNHCR protection officer. One woman, whose husband had been arbitrarily arrested and jailed by Tanzanian police, told RI that she is worried what might happen to her husband if she does not pay the demanded bribe of US$ 500.

- UNHCR estimates the current prison population in the nearby town of Kasulu to be one-third refugees, most having been arrested for leaving the camps to secure work. The refugees in this camp feel so unsafe at night in their own houses, because of bandits, that they sleep outside. The cumulative effect convinces the refugees to go home, as there is no protection where they sought it.

Refugees International, therefore, recommended that, "to fulfil its protection mandate, UNHCR immediately fill vacancies for protection officers with experienced, competent staff." The government of Tanzania should "immediately ease restrictions on refugees' freedom of movement in and around camps."

Donors further fully should "fund appeals for these neglected camp populations so that these refugees do not grow increasingly impoverished while waiting for a resolution of the continuing conflict in Burundi."

Finally, UNHCR and donors should "highlight the benefits of hosting refugees to the Tanzanian government, and challenge the government's restrictions on refugee rights."

By Rainer Chr. Hennig

© afrol News

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