The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has announced that at least 18 Burundian refugees and asylum seekers have been tortured and forcibly disappeared since late 2019, by the Tanzanian police and secret service.
Between October 2019 and August 2020, the Tanzanian authorities have allegedly detained and tortured at least 11 Burundians for several weeks at a police station in Kibondo, Kigoma region. During that time their families had no contact with them and were unable to find out where they were being held. Three of the refugees were released within Tanzania but eight were forced to leave the country and return to Burundi which is experiencing a serious humanitarian crisis with local authorities severely violating human rights. Tanzanian police accused the refugees of affiliation with armed groups, the possession of weapons, and the destabilization of Burundi but sent them back to their own country without making any charges against them. Since January 2020, the Tanzanian police have arrested and forcibly disappeared another seven refugees and asylum seekers in Mtendeli and Nduta refugee camps in Kigoma region, the HRW reports.
According to the families of the detained refugees, Tanzanian police applied the same treatment to each of their relatives. The police appeared at the victims’ homes, located in one of the refugee camps, between midnight and 3 am arrested each of them, and took them to an unknown destination, failing to inform family members where they were taken. Although the police officers wore uniforms, they did not show any arrest warrants. The wife of one of the “disappeared” refugees said that she recognized one of the policemen who took her husband and was, according to her, a security guard protecting the camp.
Human Rights Watch was able to conduct interviews with 23 victims of abuse. Nine of these reported that they were held in darkened rooms without electricity and windows at the Kibondo police station without any contact with their families or a lawyer. The victims claim they were provided with food only every three days and were also tortured. Police officers applied electric shocks to the refugees, rubbed their faces and genitals with chili, beat them, whipped them, and suspended them from the ceiling by their handcuffs.
The Human Rights Watch requested clarification of this situation from the Tanzanian authorities who are obliged to protect refugees and asylum seekers according to international law.
Tanzania is home to hundreds of thousands of Burundian refugees who began to arrive in 1972 with some actually receiving citizenship. As of October 31, 2020, over 150,000 of the refugees lived in camps close to the border with Burundi at Nduta, Nyarugusu, and Mtendeli, located in the Kigoma region. Many of the refugees had decided to leave their country when the current president, Pierre Nkurunziza, won a third term in 2015, a situation broadly disputed given that he had changed the constitution which had previously allowed only two terms of presidency. Facing strong opposition, Nkurunziza unleashed a wave of repression against his opponents forcing many to leave the country but, unfortunately, they failed to find a safe haven in neighboring Tanzania.
From 2017, Tanzania began to repatriate the refugees to Burundi under an intergovernmental agreement between Burundi and the UNHCR and, by September 2020, 100,000 Burundians had voluntarily returned to their country. Later, in 2018, Burundi and Tanzania signed a new agreement which permitted the relocation of all Burundian refugees to their own country, either voluntarily or forcibly, by the end of this year, an act which violates international law. Thus, the Tanzanian authorities began deportations and arrests to force Burundian refugees to return to their home country.
