Tanzania has closed a camp hosting thousands of Burundian refugees and repatriated almost all of them, with the exception of a handful of individuals, activists and the United Nations said on Friday.
In recent months, Burundian refugees have complained of being forcibly expelled from the Nduta camp in northwestern Tanzania, following an agreement between the governments of Dar es Salaam and Bujumbura to repatriate around 100,000 of them by June.
At the end of 2025, the number of Burundian refugees housed in two Tanzanian camps — Nduta and Nyarugusu — was estimated at 142,000, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
They had fled years of civil war, political repression and endemic poverty in their small country in the African Great Lakes region.
"The approximately 3,000 refugees who remained in the (Nduta) camp were forcibly loaded into vehicles to be sent back to Burundi on Thursday," said the Coalition for Human Rights/Living in Refugee Camps (CDH/VICAR).
"Only about ten families remained on site, awaiting transfer to the Nyarugusu camp, where 198 families had already been sent following a highly contested selection process."
Nyarugusu is expected to close on June 30, according to Tanzanian authorities.
" Constraint "
The CDH/VICAR stated that the refugees in Nduta had been subjected in recent months to "increasingly coercive measures".
These included "restrictions on freedom of movement, pressure to register for repatriation, making humanitarian aid conditional on registration for return, and the gradual demolition of homes in the camp," as well as "nighttime violence, intimidation, arrests, and enforced disappearances."
The NGO stated that these coercive measures had "resulted in recent days in a sudden wave of departures, leading to the complete closure of the camp."
The charity also condemned the UNHCR for facilitating the operations of the Tanzanian government instead of "fulfilling its mandate" to protect refugees.
A UNHCR spokesperson told AFP that the camp had been closed by the Tanzanian government.
He explained that this decision was part of an agreement on "the voluntary repatriation of Burundian refugees" concluded between the UN agency and the governments of the two East African countries.
The UNHCR had "regularly raised its concerns with the authorities whenever reports of pressure or abuse emerged, reiterating clearly that all refugee returns must be voluntary, safe and dignified," the spokesperson said.
Another UNHCR official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the repatriations but declined to comment on the allegations of coercion.
