Migration in Burundi: History, Current Trends and Future - MGSoG ...

4. Current Migration Patterns
This chapter focuses on current migration patterns in Burundi, starting from around the
year 2000. These migration patterns include both international and national migration of
Burundians. Again, however, a regional perspective is presented first.
4.1 Current regional migration in the Great Lakes Region
Table 6 presents the numbers of refugees and IDPs for the Central African Great Lakes
Region in 2009. As this table shows, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
have the largest numbers of refugees and IDPs living in other countries. For Burundi the
refugees are mainly Hutus who had fled the 1972 Burundian massacre who now live in
Tanzania. Tanzania, together with Kenya, currently hosts the most of the refugees. The
Democratic Republic of the Congo has the largest number of IDPs followed by Uganda,
Kenya, and Burundi. This is due to recent fighting in the northwest of the country.
Within six month’s time (between June 2008 and January 2009) the number of IDPs in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo has increased from 1,250,000 to 1,460,102.
Table 6: Refugees and IDPs in the Great Lakes Region: 2009
Refugees from Refugees in IDPs
Burundi 281,592 21,093 100,000
Rwanda 72,530 55,062 0
Democratic Republic of the Congo 367,995 155,162 1,460,102
Uganda 7,548 162,132 853,000
Kenya 9,688 320,605 404,000
Tanzania 1,270 321,909 0
Source: UNCHR, January 2009.
Since the situation in the Central African Great Lakes Region is relatively stable at the
moment, repatriation solutions are currently being sought for most of the long-term
refugees such as the Burundians in Tanzania and the Rwandese in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. This will be discussed in section 6, which addresses the issue of
return migration.
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