A move by the Ugandan government to send home at least 46,000 refugees from Burundi following a request from its government has backfired.
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This follows Burundian officials maintaining that the country is now safe after months of civil unrest but the refugees living in Nakivale settlement camp in Isingiro district angrily oppose the idea of returning home saying the situation hasn’t changed in Burundi in interviews with local TV Network, NBS.
The refugees heatedly attacked Burundi’s Minister for Home Affairs Pascal Barandagiye for saying that the Nkurunziza regime will not stop trying to convince their citizens to return home.
“We know their mission, this man (Pascal Barandagiye) is not to greet us. We know this man and his past, we know he is a killer, how can we trust that there is peace back home when we see them torturing and killing people on international media,” one unnamed refugee retorted at the idea of leaving in Nakivale settlement camp for Burundi.
“If President Pierre Nkurunziza is there (Burundi) we cannot go back. I cannot, the situation which I left there is still the same. Nothing has changed, they (government) are still killing our people,” another refugee vowed.
TheUgandan on Wednesday reported how Minister for Disaster Preparedness Hillary Onek had warned that those who refused to return would be issued documents for a three month extension after which they must leave Uganda.
“You are given a visa to stay here for three months and if your visa is expired, we shall not do it like Trump but we shall advise them quietly to go back,” the Minister said. “We shall expect them to go back after the peaceful resolution.”
Calling them home
Despite the bad reception, Minister Pascal Barandagiye who visiting Uganda said that they will not stop trying to convince their citizens to return home.
“We know even now that there are some people there in the camp who want to come back home,” Barandagiye said. “For those who are in Tanzania we are also planning to go there. We will convince them to come back.”
There are fears however that the opposition in Burundi will try to sabotage these efforts and ask refugees not to return to Burundi, especially before a peace agreement is reached.
The Burundian crisis began in April 2015 after President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a controversial third five-year term. The opposition said the move violated the constitution and a peace deal that brought the Burundi’s civil war to an end after the loss of 300,000 lives.
Hundreds of people, including high-ranking army officials, have been killed in the resulting unrest.
A “PR” Stunt?
Dismas Nkunda, chief executive officer of Atrocities Watch Africa, dismissed the calls by the Burundi government to have its people return home as a mere public relations stunt.
“They are saying the country is peaceful when its not. We are receiving 400 refugees [in Uganda] from Burundi everyday,” Nkunda said.
He said the conditions in Burundi have not changed as cases of harassment and torture are still rampant. Plus most of the refugees are still recovering from the atrocities they left behind. Nkunda said refugees should individually decide if they want to return to Burundi.
“The idea that the Burundi government wants to show the world that it is safe when people are fleeing is disturbing,” he added.
Uganda has been praised for its open-door policy towards refugees. There are up to a million refugees in Uganda from Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This has led Nkunda to question why Uganda would push refugees back to Burundi and not other countries.
“We have almost 1 million refugees from Sudan, Rwanda and DR Congo,” he said. “So the 45,000 from Burundi is not a big number.”
Additional reporting by Zipporah Nyambura/DW.
