More than 100 refugees from Burundi are scheduled to returnOn Wednesday, February 21, a group of roughly 100 Burundian refugees will depart Rwanda in order to return home.
Many of the refugees, who left their nation in 2015 because of political unrest, have freely stated that they would like to go back.
More than 20 people from Kigali and 78 people from the Mahama camp in the Kirehe area make up the group.Returning to their homeland.
They will pass into their own country on Wednesday morning, escorted by representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Rwanda, at the Burundian border in the Bugesera district.
After a failed coup attempt against former President Pierre Nkurunziza, Burundian refugees began flooding into Rwanda in 2012, leading to the establishment of the Mahama refugee camp. Rwanda was then experiencing political instability.
The camp took in almost sixty thousand Burundian refugees that year. They began to willingly return to their nation in 2020. More than 30,000 have come back so far.
At the moment, the camp is home to about 20,000 Congolese refugees and over 40,000 Burundian refugees. About 29 more people from nations including Yemen, Sudan, and others are also hosted there.
One of the refugees leaving for Burundi, Emmanuel Nzeyimana, told The New Times that the information they received from their counterparts about the circumstances in their communities influenced their choice.
“I think I can go and live there in peace, so after talking to someone there, I decided to go,” he stated.
Conversely, some refugees expressed their skepticism towards the situation, citing personal experience of friends who returned only to face torture or worse.
“There have been instances of torture committed against repatriates. “I have no intention of returning,” declared a refugee.
