Refugees from Burundi's civil war are forgotten but not gone

Bernadetta (30) clutches the photo album that is the one testament of her former life in Burundi and says: "Now I have nothing…

Bernadetta (30) clutches the photo album that is the one testament of her former life in Burundi and says: "Now I have nothing - except peace." Home for the past five years has been this sprawling, semi-permanent refugee camp near Kibondo, in western Tanzania, just 20 km from the border with Burundi.

Bernadetta has just been elected chairwoman of her block in Mtendeli camp, with responsibility for settling disputes and keeping two communally-owned cows. She also fills the role of mother to eight children; one her own, and the rest belonging to relatives who disappeared or were killed in Burundi's brutal civil war. Bernadetta's husband Prosper is missing, presumed dead.

The album, peppered with prayer cards to St Maria Goretti, tells of happier times - weddings, parties, days out in the country around her hometown, Cankuzo. Bernadetta's family were well-to-do, and ran a co-operative shop in which she worked.

But when Burundi's first democratically-elected Hutu president was assassinated in 1993, Bernadetta and thousands of other Hutus fled their homeland overnight. Since then, up to 200,000 people have been killed in a brutal civil war between the army, controlled by the minority Tutsi population, and Hutu rebels.

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When up to two million Rwandan refugees returned home from camps in Zaire and Tanzania at the end of 1996, the world's interest in the problems of the Great Lakes region of Africa faded dramatically. Yet, five years on, almost 280,000 Burundian refugees remain in Tanzania, plus a further 60,000 Congolese and other refugees.

Forgotten but not gone, they lead a hand-to-mouth existence in vast shanty-towns carved out of the Tanzanian forest. While peace missions come and go, and the civil war at home rages unabated, the refugees survive on weekly hand-outs of maize from the World Food Programme, the UN's food aid arm. The bills are paid by the EC Humanitarian Office (ECHO).

The waste of human potential in a refugee camp is enormous. In my short visit to the camp, I met teachers, doctors, engineers and farmers, most of them prevented from following their careers. Some, like Victoire Irambuna (24), give their skills voluntarily. A doctor, she works as a medical assistant in the camp clinic, looking after malnourished children and malaria cases. But down the road, the patrolling Tanzanian guards provide a reminder of the limits to her world.

Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world, up to now has been remarkably welcoming to the refugees. "The local communities have accepted the refugees without significant protest, in contrast to the situation in many richer European countries where refugees are increasingly unwelcome," notes Michael Doyle, a Concern worker in Kibondo.

But even this welcome is wearing thin. Late last year, the Tanzanian authorities rounded up 24,000 Burundian refugees who had dispersed into the local community. Even those who were married to Tanzanians, or had been in the region since the 1950s, were forcibly removed to the camps.

The local administrator, Col P.M. Mahada, says that "so long as there is no peace in Burundi, we don't mind having the refugees around". But he goes on to blame the refugees for raising the cost of living and for cutting down the forests and admits he is "unhappy" to have so many on his doorstep.

But he might have even more refugees before long. Although the border is officially sealed, more than 10,000 new refugees have crossed from Burundi so far this year. Worryingly, some Hutus in Rwanda have also started to move again; 3,000 left in recent months after local mayors accused them of collaborating with rebels in the north-west of the country.

In anticipation of a possible big influx, Concern has been contracted to prepare a new refugee site near Mtendeli, capable of housing 50,000 new arrivals.

Within Burundi, a further 600,000 people have been displaced, either forcibly or voluntarily, by the fighting. And beyond, mystery still surrounds the fate of 180,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees who fled deeper into the Congo rather than return home last year. Many may have been massacred.

In total, ECHO estimates that about two million people are in need of assistance. The world may not care to hear it, but the crisis in the Great Lakes is far from over.