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Burundians Begin to Return Home

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
May 6, 2003
Posted to the web May 6, 2003
Nairobi
A week after the transfer of the presidency from a Tutsi to a Hutu, the first
wave of Burundian refugees arrived in Burundi, aid agencies said on Tuesday.
They reported that 500 Burundians had walked into Burundi from the camps in
Kibondo District in Western Tanzania, and were gathering in Gisuru, a village
in Burundi's Ruyigi Province.
Although medical staff who visited the refugees said that their medical state
was "not alarming", they called on aid agencies to supply food and blankets
immediately as the returnees were sleeping out in the open.
Staff from UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, arrived in Ruyigi on Tuesday to
conduct a preliminary assessment of the situation.
Leading up to the change in presidents, which saw Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, cede
power to his Hutu vice president Domitien Ndayizeye, there had been much
speculation as to whether the refugees would return home.

   

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