Forced removal under the guise of voluntary repatriation could place over 100,000 refugees at risk of harm in their home country

John, a Burundian living in Tanzania’s Nyarugusu refugee camp, is the embodiment of the instability that more than 100,000 other Burundian refugees are facing as the Tanzanian government renews threats to forcibly repatriate Burundian refugees if they do not return “voluntarily.”

John, who we’ve given a pseudonym for his safety, says, “I have seen a lot of things. I have fled the genocide in 1972 and the war in 1993.”

In addition to fleeing Burundi multiple times, John, like many other Burundians, has also been displaced from Tanzania, the state that provided him refuge. During his second displacement from Burundi in 2012, the Tanzanian government forced John and thousands of other Burundians refugees to repatriate. He recalls, “Early in the morning, we found [Tanzanian] soldiers surrounding the camp. They even used firearms. Some [refugees] were killed; some were strongly beaten.”

Today, after having been displaced from Burundi to Tanzania for a third time in 2015, John and his compatriots are facing another violent expulsion: “Right now in Tanzania, I am not stable. I think they will force us to leave again.” This instability is a result of the Tanzanian government’s repeated assaults on refugees’ human rights, obstructions to socioeconomic integration, and recurrent threats to force them back to Burundi.

When refugees were forcibly repatriated to Burundi in 2012, many were not welcomed back into their communities. Some found their homes and land occupied after having been gone for decades, a significant obstacle in a tiny country where the majority relies on small-scale agriculture to survive. Other returnees ended up in so-called peace villages, where living conditions were dire. Competition for land often turned violent. When another crisis came around in 2015, many of these returnees were among the first to flee to Tanzania again.

Insecurity for returnees has become twofold: The very act of fleeing marks them as potential opposition sympathizers to a repressive Burundian regime, and land availability remains at risk of causing further strain with a mass influx of returnees. Moreover, the Burundian economy has taken a drastic turn since 2015, with food prices skyrocketing due to global inflation and food shortages, which will also be exacerbated upon the arrival of thousands from Tanzania.