Refugee families face insecurity as camps close

Thousands of refugee families face an unsettled future with camps in Tanzania and Uganda set to close next week. The wars are over in Burundi and Rwanda, but still some of the refugees are fearful of going home.

Tanzania which has 36,000 Burundian refugees, and Uganda, with 17,000 Rwandan refugees, have threatened to force them to go back to the countries they fled. Both East African nations say that after the closures on Tuesday, the remaining refugees will be "stripped" of their refugee status and treated as "illegal immigrants", rights campaigners Human Rights Watch has said. Both countries have signed agreements with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help refugees who want to go home to return safely, and to find alternative arrangments for those who do not.

In Uganda, setting for the 2006 hit film, The Last King of Scotland about brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's regime in the 1970s, the United Nations has been criticised for failing to inform refugees that, while food aid will stop, they have the right to seek citizenship in Uganda or apply for asylum in another country. Many of the Rwandan refugees in Uganda worry that the Rwandan government will view refugees as somehow involved in the recent wave of genocide, because many of the people behind it still live freely in Europe, and remnants of the former army and genocidal militias are still fighting a war in Democratic Republic of Congo. And, whereas in Uganda they get land to grow food and materials to build houses, the prospects for land in densely populated Rwanda are less certain.

Hundreds of Rwandan refugees are reported to have fled their camps in Uganda to other parts of the country, fearing forced return to Rwanda. "Both countries need to end their threats and clearly explain to the refugees what options are on the table," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Refugees do not lose their status as refugees simply because their camps are closed, and they should not be forcibly returned to their countries. Burundians in Tanzania are also worried about access to land. Some returnees have faced the prospect of land disputes, says UNHCR. Tanzania has offered citizenship to 220,000 Burundian refugees who fled in 1972. It is the more recent refugees who fled the country's civil war in 1993 who are being encouraged to return home.

The health statistics of Tanzania are some of the worst. The mortality rate among children aged under five was 118 out of 1,000 in 2006. To put this into perspective, the figure for the US in the same year was 8 out of 1,000. The leading cause of death in children is malaria, and for adults it is HIV/AIDS. Malaria is curable and HIV/AIDS is treatable; deaths from these diseases are preventable and unnecessary. Figures from 2005 show that for children under five years of age, only 16% slept under insecticide treated bed nets, and only 58% received anti-malarial treatment.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children