Attachments
Highlights
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The number of Burundians fleeing their country has crossed the 100,000 mark, with 50,000 concentrated in Tanzania’s Kagunga village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. A count conducted by the asylum seeker using the Cells and Communes administrative systems they have in Burundi revealed there are 15,000 families comprising 53,000 persons.
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The biggest challenge is to get the people off Kagunga, amid continuing fears of the outbreak of disease. The asylum seekers are in a confined space, with few latrines and drinking water in a village that is normally home to 12,000 people.
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In DRC, over 90% of asylum seekers are with host families in different villages. UNHCR has started biometric registration of refugees in collaboration with the Government’s National Commission for Refugees. Mobile teams are going from village to village over a stretch of some 180 km. WFP has undertaken to provide food to assist refugees in host families. Distribution will start in the next days. Meanwhile, the Government has decided the location of a site where refugees will be transferred. It won’t be a refugee camp but a site next to a village and we will assist the refugees on a community basis, helping the existing schools, health centres.