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Burundi

Burundi: Majority of IDPs returned home, but displacement continues near capital

This summary outlines the main findings of the newly updated country profile on internal displacement in Burundi. The profile was prepared by the Global IDP Project of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which monitors and analyses internal displacement in some 50 countries worldwide. The full country profile is available from the Project's Database or upon request by e-mail.
Since the early 1990s, hundreds of thousands of Burundians have fled their homes to escape fighting between the government and Hutu rebel groups seeking to put an end to the political dominance of the Tutsi minority. Many others, predominantly Hutus, were forcibly displaced into camps by the government in the second part of the 1990s. More than 300,000 people have died as a result of the conflict which has been accompanied by widespread human rights violations by all sides, including killings, forced recruitment and rape.

Following the signing of ceasefire agreements between the government and several rebel groups in 2003, thousands of refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned home. The UN estimates that over half of the 281,000 people displaced in camps had returned home by mid-2004, most of them without any external assistance. At the same time, however, more people were displaced in Bujumbura Rural Province, the area around the capital, as one particular rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), still refused to make peace with the government. IDPs and other civilians of Bujumbura Rural suffered numerous human rights violations, as government troops, fighters of the FNL and a former rebel group now allied with the government, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), deliberately killed civilians, raped women and girls, burned houses, and stole property in the province. The total number of IDPs as of mid-2004 was estimated at over 170,000. Return has since continued, albeit at a slower pace, but there is no updated figure of the current number of people still internally displaced.

The United Nations and the Burundian government have carried out a comprehensive survey of the IDPs in camps in Burundi in 2004, which gives precious information about the location of IDPs, their vulnerabilities and their aspirations. But coordination on IDP issues at government level and among humanitarian actors stays weak, and activities on behalf of people currently displaced or who have recently returned home remain largely under-funded.

Background of displacement

Since the independence of their country in 1962, hundreds of thousands of Hutu and Tutsi Burundians have been killed in massacres and counter-massacres perpetrated for ethnic reasons. Millions more have at times fled their homes for fear of the killing. The violence has reinforced a deep sense of vulnerability for both ethnic groups. Hutu are demographically dominant but often see themselves as vulnerable to the political, economical and military power of the Tutsi. Many Tutsi consider themselves a threatened minority. The current war started in 1993, following the assassination of the first elected President - a Hutu - Melchior Ndadaye and the subsequent massacres (see box, displacement chronology). People have fled to avoid fighting, or in anticipation of fighting. But very often they have also been the direct target of violence.

The year 2004 should have marked the end of the political transition foreseen in the 2000 Arusha Agreement, according to which a Tutsi and then a Hutu would take turns to be president of the country. However, President Domitien Ndayzeye, a Hutu, had to postpone the national elections planned for the end of 2004 until April 2005, mainly due to the delay among various political parties in negotiating a new constitution. The process also slowed down due to the continuing fighting of the FNL - a group drawn largely from the majority Hutu population - against the government. As of the end of 2004, however, the FNL was reported to be increasingly weakening and to only have a few hundred fighters in Burundi (ICG, 9 December 2004).

The conflict has had a regional dimension as well. Hutu rebel groups have launched attacks from their bases in Tanzania and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while Burundian army troops have been supported by soldiers of the Rwandan army (HRW, 21 December 2003). In August 2004, the FNL claimed responsibility for the massacre that month of 160 Congolese Tutsi refugees at the Gatumba transit camp on the Burundi side of the border with the DRC, but a UN investigation concluded that there was a strong indication that the FNL had not acted alone (UNSC, 15 November 2004).

Significant reduction of the number of displaced in 2004

From the end of 2003 to mid-2004, some 137,000 IDPs either returned home or were on the move, due to the general improvement of security in the country. Return movements were especially widespread in the

southern provinces of Makamba and Bururi, which had historically hosted the largest IDP camps since the 1993 crisis (OCHA, 11 November 2004). Most of these IDPs returned on their own, unassisted by external actors. According to a World Food Programme (WFP) survey in September 2004, only 18 per cent of the households which had experienced displacement in the past two years and had returned from inside Burundi, received a three-month aid return package, compared to 56 per cent of those who had returned from a refugee camp abroad (WFP, September 2004).

According to the UN, approximately 140,000 people remained displaced in camps as of mid-2004, close to 90 per cent of them in the vicinity of their place of origin. Two-thirds were located in four provinces, Makamba, Gitega, Kayanza and Bujumbura Rural. A survey conducted in 2004 by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the government of Burundi found that the vast majority of IDP camps are mono-ethnic, inhabited by Tutsis. Notable exceptions exist in Bujumbura Rural province, where the displaced population is almost exclusively Hutu, and Makamba province where a number of camps are ethnically mixed. More than one-third of all displaced households are headed by women and by children. These households are among the most vulnerable, and among the most likely to remain definitively in the camps where they currently reside (OCHA, August 2004).

While over the last ten years all but one of Burundi's 17 provinces have been affected by displacement, as of early 2005, fighting only continued in Bujumbura Rural Province. The scale of internal displacement in that province is difficult to estimate, but according to UN agencies and NGOs, an average of 30-40,000 people are displaced monthly in the province as a direct consequence of the armed conflict (OCHA, 11 November 2004, p.8).

Physical security

During 2004, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), both government and FNL forces deliberately killed civilians, raped women and girls, burned houses, and stole property in Bujumbura Rural Province. Towards the end of the year, humanitarian agencies were forced to suspend the delivery of assistance in the province, as IDPs and other vulnerable households were robbed by government and FNL forces immediately after receiving assistance (HRW, 14 January 2005).

Both rebel groups and the government have recruited child soldiers, many of whom were displaced children. Child recruitment escalated in the period leading up to the change of president in May 2003, as armed groups reportedly sought to inflate their numbers to gain bargaining power in the peace accords (CSUCS, 16 January 2004). Recruitment continued in 2004 despite the political transition, and children as young as ten years old continued to be used as domestic labour, porters and spies as well as in combat in Burundi and DRC by the Burundian government armed forces (CSUCS, 17 November 2004; OCHA, August 2004). The majority of displaced children do not go to school as their parents cannot afford the school fees, few of them having benefited from the exemption to which vulnerable groups are eligible in Burundi. As of mid-2004, on average, 44 per cent of displaced children were enrolled in school - 46 per cent of boys and 42 per cent of girls (OCHA, August 2004).

Humanitarian conditions

In 2004, fighting in Bujumbura Rural led to additional displaced people in need of aid, although humanitarian access to many areas of the province was extremely limited. In November 2004, there was a cholera outbreak in a camp hosting 30,000 IDPs in Kabezi Commune, following heavy rains. Poor drainage and sanitation in the camp facilitated the spreading of the epidemic. Heavy rains also destroyed the IDPs' homes, most of which were wooden structures covered with banana leaves, and disrupted school for displaced children. Crops planted by the IDPs were damaged by the rain or looted by the FNL. The displaced in Kabezi also complained of hunger, saying they had received relief food only twice in the four months they had been at the camp (IRIN, 16 November 2004).

In other provinces, the humanitarian situation of the IDPs has generally improved. As of mid-2004, close to 70 per cent of IDP camps had a health facility in or close to the camp, 91 per cent had a water point located in or within close proximity of the site, and 84 per cent of IDP households reported having a latrine in the site (OCHA, August 2004). On the other hand, it means that 30 per cent of IDPs still had no close access to health facilities, which is preoccupying, especially considering the high level of malnutrition and health problems among children (WFP, September 2004). Housing conditions throughout the country remain poor, and according to the National Commission for the Reintegration of War-affected People, about 1.2 million refugees, IDPs and widows lack basic shelter (IRIN, 5 October 2004). Many IDPs complain about the widespread corruption in aid distribution among local administrators or powerful people in the camps, citing examples of fabricated lists which benefit the rich and disregard the most vulnerable groups, particularly female- and child- headed households (OCHA, August 2004).

The first cause of mortality in Burundi is malaria (MSF, 6 May 2004). Another leading killer, among IDPs and others, is HIV/AIDS, with 40,000 dying of the disease in 2000 alone, according to the Director of Burundi's national AIDS programme. HIV rates are particularly high in IDP camps due to the prevalence of sexual violence and breakdown of family structures (IRIN-CEA, 22 June 2001).

National response

In January 2004, the Burundian government published a national programme for the rehabilitation of IDPs and refugees. The Ministry of Resettlement and Reintegration of IDP and Repatriates is responsible for the implementation of the programme together with the National Commission for the Reintegration of War-affected People (CNRS) (Government of Burundi, January 2004). According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), the CNRS currently lacks the means necessary to carry out its tasks. In addition, its plan for IDP and refugee return is not detailed enough and fails to involve partners at the national and international level (ICG, 2 December 2003). Short of staff and funds, the CNRS has had to focus its action principally on returning refugees, to the detriment of the internally displaced (FMR, September 2004). Many IDPs deplore the fact that all decisions regarding the IDP community are made by the local administration (OCHA, August 2004). The UN also noted at the end of 2004 that the coordination capacities of government structures remained limited at both national and provincial levels, especially that of the CNRS (OCHA, 11 November 2004).

International response focuses on IDP and refugee return

In 2004, UN agencies and NGOs continued to respond to the needs of some of the people temporarily displaced by fighting, as well as to displaced people in camps. During a mission in Burundi in November 2004, members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) noted the wide-scale displacements that have taken place in Bujumbura Rural, and underscored the need to increase the government's efforts to protect the civilian population (UNSC, 30 November 2004). Troops of the United Nations mission (UNOB) created in June 2004 have been deployed in Bujumbura Rural Province and provide protection for IDPs and other civilians. According to the International Crisis Group, these activities have reassured the population, but have not prevented fighting continuing, as ONUB has neither the mandate nor sufficient troops to intervene (ICG, 9 December 2004).

As in previous years, protection concerns regarding IDPs continued to be channelled through the Technical Follow-Up Group (Groupe Technique de Suivi, GTS), a weekly forum comprising UN agencies, government and NGO representatives. The UN Inter-Agency Division on Internal Displacement, which undertook two missions to Burundi in 2004, noted however that the GTS had remained largely inoperative due to the limited engagement of UN actors, and due to the tendency to use the forum for humanitarian rather than protection issues (IDD, 24 September 2004).

Humanitarian organisations also focused on supporting the return of the internally displaced to their homes, or on helping them settle elsewhere. In mid-2004, OCHA - the UN focal point on IDP issues in Burundi - conducted, in collaboration with the Burundian government, a survey on all IDP camps to assess housing needs in preparation for the return of internally displaced people and refugees. The survey highlighted the lack of shelter as the main obstacle to durable solutions for returning IDPs. It also found that IDPs in the north were less willing to return than IDPs in the South. IDPs in northern provinces viewed the inter-ethnic clashes that had sparked displacement in that region in 1993 as not yet resolved, while IDPs in southern provinces acknowledged increased security following the ceasefire agreements between the government and the former armed rebel movements which had caused displacement in the area (OCHA, August 2004). According to the ICG, in order to achieve durable solutions for IDPs and refugees, national and international programmes should focus on solving conflicting land claims (ICG, 7 October 2003). The survey mentioned above pointed out that surprisingly, the vast majority of IDPs in Burundi continue to access and cultivate their native lands, and that very few report having problems with land access due to disputes over land ownership or land tenure. It highlights however the need to pay attention to the special vulnerability of female- and child-headed households, who generally have no possibility of accessing their land (OCHA, August 2004). One urgent measure is to allow displaced and other women to inherit land. In its strategy for IDP and refugee return, the Burundian government promised the explicit recognition of the right of women to land ownership in a new law (Government of Burundi, January 2004).

A successful reintegration of the displaced also requires increased commitments by donors. Since the beginning of the crisis in 1993, donors have appeared reluctant to provide funding to meet the needs of Burundians. According to OCHA, donor funding has plummeted in Burundi since 1992, and with 45 per cent funded, the 2004 UN Consolidated Appeal was no exception to the poor response (OCHA, 19 November 2002; financial tracking January 2005). The 2005 Appeal is requesting $175 million which includes $40m requested by WFP through a regional appeal. This represents a significant increase over 2004, when $72 million was asked for. The largest share of the funding requested includes community infrastructure rehabilitation and reintegration of populations into their communes of origin (OCHA, 11 November 2004). With the improvement of the political situation, donors have promised increased resources. Over one billion dollars was pledged at a 2004 donor meeting for the reconstruction of Burundi, but by the end of the year, little had been disbursed (OCHA, 20 February 2004; IRIN, 5 October 2004).

The full Country Profile includes all references to the sources and documents used.