By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) – Burundi is facing a rapidly worsening humanitarian situation as more than 40,000 people have fled there in two weeks to escape fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.N. said on Friday.
“Last week more than 9,000 people crossed in one day … This is the first time Burundi has received this large number of people”, Brigitte Mukanga-eno, UNHCR Representative in Burundi, told reporters in Geneva via video link.
The M23 advance is the gravest escalation in more than a decade of the long-running conflict in eastern Congo, rooted in the spillover of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide into Congo and the struggle for control of Congo’s vast mineral resources.
Rwanda rejects allegations by Congo, the United Nations and Western powers that it supports M23 with arms and troops. It says it is defending itself against the threat from a Hutu militia, which it says is fighting with the Congolese military.
Several areas in northwest Burundi are overwhelmed with people, some of whom have been displaced several times and have arrived injured or with health problems such as measles, according to the U.N.
The U.N. representative recounted the story of a woman whose two children died from exhaustion shortly after arriving across the border into Burundi.
U.N. refugee agency UNHCR says 36,000 people have fled to Burundi, some on makeshift boats across the Rusizi river separating the two countries, while 6,000 have entered via the official border crossing of Bujumbura since February 14.
“The escalating situation in the DRC has had a big impact on Burundi. Over the past few weeks we have observed large number of Congolese who have been crossing into Burundi”, Mukanga-eno said.
UNHCR plans to move the displaced, who are being temporarily housed in an open air stadium as well as schools and churches, to an area of land where humanitarian care can be provided.
The agency has launched an emergency appeal for $40.4 million to provide lifesaving help to support the potential influx of 258,000 refugees into Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia.
Burundi has had its own soldiers in eastern Congo for years, initially to hunt down Burundian rebels there, but more recently, to aid in the fight against M23.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by William Maclean)
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