When Going Home is a Tough Choice

The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI)
Refugee Rights News
Volume 3, Issue 1
February 2006

Burundi is slowly coming out of the political nightmare that wrecked the country with decades of fighting. Thousands of refugees who had fled to neighboring countries have now begun returning home. But what kind of home will they find, how will they settle and rebuild a life that remains far from perfect.

Anna Mecagni, a humanitarian worker in Burundi, reflects on the paradox of return to a country with immense challenges.

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Bumping along the dusty road traveling from Tanzania back to Burundi, my home away from home, my mind was consumed by three questions: (1) where will they fit? (2) why isn’t the money following? (3) how can the international community aid better?

I was returning from a cross-border mission, having spent a few days visiting some of the large refugee camps near Kibondo, Tanzania. The Tanzanian camps along the border with Burundi have been the temporary home, for about the past twelve years, to approximately 500,000 Burundian asylum seekers. Starting in 1993, they fled the most recent period of violent civil conflict that engulfed Burundi. However, the violence has been recently quelled in many areas of Burundi, and there has been a mass return of returnees. However, many questions, like those listed above, remain unanswered.

Where will they fit?

The big question, that looming elephant in the corner, is about land. Over 90% of the Burundian population is dependent on subsistence agriculture. In general, the Burundian environmental context is gloomy: deforestation, degradation of soil caused by years of slash and burn agriculture, and climate change seemingly the cause of shifting rainy and dry seasons. This year, in the north and east, there are reports of food insecurity.

Over the past couple of years, UNHCR has assisted approximately 200,000 former asylum seekers in Tanzania to repatriate back to Burundi. Tensions between repatriates from Tanzania (from the 1993 and 1972 conflicts), internally displaced persons, and non-displaced Burundians have been rising over land issues, particularly in fertile areas. Some experts cite conflict over land as one of the main root causes of the continuing conflict in Burundi. With at least 300,000 potential repatriates to return to Burundi in the next couple of years, really, where will they fit? The government seemingly does not have a plan for land re-distribution or a national approach to land dispute resolution. Looking ahead, if land issues go unresolved, will they spark the next wave of violence in Burundi?

Why isn’t the money following?

I was surprised to see that there were on-going construction projects in the Tanzanian refugee camps such as a new ward being built in one of the camp’s hospital. This struck me as somewhat bizarre. As noted above, about 200,000 Burundian asylum seekers have returned home. It is assumed that a large number of others will follow in 2006, particularly after the recent improvements in security in rural provinces like Bururi, from which many Burundians fled in 1993. If Burundians are leaving Tanzania voluntarily (although some might argue the “encouragement” from the Tanzanian government contributes to their decision to leave) why is money being spent on construction projects for a departing population?

Now, I would certainly not advocate for NGOs in Tanzania to close up shop, as there are still significant and serious needs in the camps. However, if one compares the level of level of social services – health, water, education – in the camps and in the rural provinces of Burundi, where most repatriates are returning, one finds that the basics standards tend to be lower in Burundi. In a very simplified sense, maybe the money is going to the wrong place. Refugees are considered an international responsibility and returnees are considered a national responsibility. However, if returnees’ needs are not met, will they just turn around, re-cross the border, and become refugees again? Should the international community shift their allocation of funding from one side of the border to the other, to follow the wave of migration? Would this, in turn, aid the positive reintegration of repatriates back into society?

How can the international community aid better?

There was a small child in a hospital that I visited in one of the refugee camps. Her skin was wrinkled and saggy, like it was tired and just couldn’t hold on any longer. A doctor, who was teaching medical staff to look for typical signs of malnutrition, pointed out this child and said “This child is from a nearby Tanzanian village. 90% of our malnutrition cases are Tanzanian.” It was a shock to me that a Tanzanian child, suffering from malnutrition, was being treated in a camp for Burundian refugees.

The way the system categorizes different populations and discriminates in its aid delivery is sometimes infuriating. Refugees have the 1951 Convention and UNHCR, while IDPs sitting just across the border only have the Guiding Principles to hang onto (although discussions are on the table for an IDP protocol in the region). Numbers of returnees are supposedly rising but UNHCR’s funding will decrease by 20% in 2006. In Burundi, it is often the non-displaced, who stayed put and suffered through the war, that tend to be the worst off of all conflict-affected groups.

The solutions are hard to find, and I do not purport to have any answers or innovative approaches. And, yes, some organizations are reducing the lines between populations and working on geographic rather than refugee-only programs. But, in general, how the international community can more equitable in their definitions, support and assistance to populations affected by conflict? Can NGOs, which work with different populations across borders, frame the debate? How, really, can the international community aid better?