Burundi: Secure tenure and land access still challenges for long-term IDPs

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31 December 2012

As of the end of 2012, about 78,800 IDPs were living in around 120 settlements, mainly in northern and central Burundi. The majority were ethnic Tutsis displaced by inter-communal violence following the 1993 coup and the ensuing fighting between government forces and non-state armed groups. There has been no new displacement since 2008.

In 2011, the Ministry of National Solidarity, Refugee Return and Social Reintegration led a profiling exercise of IDPs, intended to inform government support for durable solutions. The survey found that 85 per cent wished to integrate locally, fewer than eight per cent preferred the option of return and a similar percentage preferred settlement elsewhere.

The ownership of much of the land on which IDPs’ settlements were established is disputed, however, and tenure risks are an obstacle to local integration. The government established the National Commission for Land and Other Possessions (Commission Nationale des Terres et autres Biens or CNTB) to find solutions for people who lost land and possessions during the conflict, and it continues to adjudicate on conflicting claims. Progress, however, has been slow and complicated, and to what extent local integration can become a durable solution remains to be seen.

A comprehensive land code enacted in August 2011 should help IDPs identify and certify their land, and a national “villagisation” scheme that began in 2011 was also considered an opportunity to facilitate durable solutions for some IDPs and repatriated refugees. Neither process has progressed as planned, however, and few IDPs have benefited as a result.

Burundi has ratified the Great Lake Pact and it signed the Kampala Convention in 2009. The process of ratifying the convention is still ongoing, and with considerable numbers of refugees returning from Tanzania over the end of the year, there is an opportunity to renew national efforts towards durable solutions for IDPs and repatriated refugees alike.

30 April 2009: IDPs and returnees displaced again by heavy rains

Some 3,000 IDPs and returnees had to leave a site at Sabe, close to the capital Bujumbura, as weeks of heavy rains flooded or swept away their makeshift homes. The lack of sanitation facilities aggravated the situation, with rubbish and faeces floating in the stagnant water, and some residents reported waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea and roundworms. The Ministry of National Solidarity, the Evangelist Church and the World Food Programme have distributed relief, but residents described it as inadequate and requested assistance to move to a safer site. The Ministry of National Solidarity said the ministry was planning to move the Sabe residents “soon” to a safer site, but did not give a date. Prior to the flooding, UNHCR indicated that it had no knowledge of the Sabe site residents as a group in need of international humanitarian aid. Most of the residents have settled there for years, and the international agency normally only assists those who have just returned, notably with housing, land and early subsistence money.

Up to 100,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) were living in mid-2011 in settlements in the north and centre of Burundi. They had been displaced by inter-ethnic and inter-communal violence which broke out after a 1993 coup d’état and the fighting between government forces and rebel groups which followed.

The security situation improved after the last rebel group laid down its arms in 2008, and there has been no new conflict-induced displacement since then. The majority of people consulted in a comprehensive IDP survey by OCHA in 2005 declared that they felt well integrated into their current location and comfortable among their new neighbours, and expressed a wish to remain in the IDP settlements. While all IDP settlements in the south have officially been closed since 2005, few IDPs in the north and centre of the country are thought to have returned to their places of origin. The majority of them are ethnic Tutsi. (...)

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^{18 August 2011}