Burundi nationals returning from Zaire

Amnesty International, 

14/11/1996

Amnesty International is gravely concerned for the safety of Burundi nationals returning from Zaire in light of recent reports of mass extrajudicial executions of such returnees by the Burundi security forces. The Zairian authorities have stated that "all refugees from Burundi" must leave Zaire, and in addition armed groups have been forcibly returning Burundi nationals into Burundi (see below). In the absence of any effective safeguards to protect them, all returnees are at risk of extrajudicial execution, "disappearance", arbitrary arrest and torture in Burundi.

On or around 10 November 1996, ai least 46 Burundi nationals who recently returned from Zaire are reported to have been shot and bayoneted to death by the security forces in the Bwiza district of the capital, Bujumbura.

Some 40 returnees are reported to have been extrajudicially executed by members of the Burundi security forces on or around 27 October ai the border post, before the returnees reached Gatumba transit camp, Rural Bujumbura Province. The authorities denied humanitarian agencies and United Nations human rights monitors access to the area.

On 22 October, as many as 400 returnees from Zaire were reportedly gathered by members of the Burundi security forces ai Murambi Seventh Day Adventist Church, Citiboke Province. Adult males were reportedly separated from the rest and extrajudicially executed.

After passing through border transit camps, returnees risk being taken to the zones where they were formerly resident, and from where all members of their ethnic group have been forced to leave, making them particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Burundi has been in a state of civil war since the coup attempt of 21 October 1993. Since then, more than 150,000 people have been killed by security forces or armed groups from both Tutsi and Hutu communities. Since the coup in July 1996 which returned Major Pierre Buyoya to power, the conflict has continued and human rights violations by the government security forces and Tutsi and Hutu armed groups have continued. The United Nations have reported that about 10,000 people have been killed in politically motivated violence since July 1996.

The on-going war in eastern Zaire and attacks on Hutu refugees by the Tutsi-led Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL), Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire, an armed group in Zaire, have forced ai least 6,000 Hutu refugees to return to Burundi. Hundreds of these are reported to have been extrajudicially executed. In Zaire, the towns of Uvira and Bukavu in South-Kivu, as well as Goma in North-Kivu are now under the control of the AFDL. The borders with neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi are officially closed and information about human rights abuses in the two regions is currently difficult to obtain or confirm. The AFDL are reported to be behind attacks on refugee camps in North and South Kivu regions and on Lemera hospital in South-Kivu, where dozens of civilians were deliberately and arbitrarily kilied.

Amnesty International has received reports that members of the AFDL have arrested and forcibly returned Burundi refugees from eastern Zaire, handing thern over to members of the Burundi security forces. Other reports suggest that some Burundi refugees may have been kilied or "disappeared" by members of Zairian armed groups as they tried to cross the border.

Amnesty International, International Secretarial, 1 Easton Street, London WClX 8DJ, United Kingdom@AGNews 2002