Tanzania wants to send refugees on its soil back to their country of origin

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu announced on Monday January 22 her desire to return the more than 200,000 refugees present on Tanzanian soil to their country of origin.

If officially, these refugees must leave voluntarily, the pressure on them is increasing.

Tanzania is home to more than 250,000 refugees, the majority of whom are Burundian.

Here, Burundian families who fled their country wait to be registered as refugees at the Nyarugusu camp, in northwest Tanzania, June 11, 2015. © Stéphanie Aglietti / AFP

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Samia Suluhu Hassan expressed her willingness to return all refugees on Tanzanian soil two days ago in Dar es Salaam, during a meeting with the top commander of the TDF, the Tanzanian army, who had just asked him.

“

 As head of state, I have taken into account your recommendation to identify all refugees residing in Tanzania, (...) so that we can see how we can return them to their country of origin 

” , declared the President of Tanzania.

In June 2023, according to figures from the UN High Commission (UNHCR), the country sheltered more than 250,000 refugees, two-thirds of whom have fled Burundi since the 2015 crisis. The rest is made up mainly of Congolese refugees in coming from eastern DRC, plagued by recurrent armed violence.

For several years, Tanzania has considered that these refugees are an increasing economic burden and could constitute a security threat: it therefore wants to see them leave.

But

all the campaigns imposed with a view to voluntary return

or restrictions of all kinds have not succeeded in convincing refugees, especially Burundians,

to return en masse

to their country of origin.

Even if Samia Suluhu accuses the UNHCR of not being up to its mission, she promised her army on Monday January 22 to continue to “ 

work

 ” with the UN organization.

She is counting above all on “ 

political dialogue

 ” with the countries concerned, she says, to resolve this issue.

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Continue reading on the same themes:

  • Tanzania

  • DRC

  • Burundi

  • Refugees

  • Immigration

  • International Migration