{"id":23626,"date":"2016-03-02T05:14:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T05:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/census-of-foreigners-in-burundi-sparks-fears\/"},"modified":"2016-03-02T05:13:20","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T05:13:20","slug":"census-of-foreigners-in-burundi-sparks-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/census-of-foreigners-in-burundi-sparks-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Census of foreigners in Burundi sparks fears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Nairobi (AFP) &#8211; Burundi launched a drive Tuesday to register all foreigners, sparking fears among overseas nationals that the scheme could be a pretext for government surveillance.}<\/p>\n<p>All non-Burundians in the crisis-hit country will be required to report to border police offices in the coming two months, according to a public security ministry spokesman.<\/p>\n<p>Several foreigners told AFP they feared it was a pretext to track them, and Rwandans said the process could lead to their community being victimised.<\/p>\n<p>But Public Security Minister Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni insisted last month that the move was aimed at granting foreigners a biometric ID card.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign nationals &#8212; who also include people from West Africa including Congolese, as well as Indians &#8212; will be required to attend police stations in person and carry their travel documents.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t know how the police will use this data and with the violence that has already struck the Rwandan community&#8230; I think that I will also have to leave he country,&#8221; said a Rwandan national born in Burundi 40 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of Rwandans who lived in Burundi have fled the country since the start of the crisis after several arrests within their community.<\/p>\n<p>Relations between Burundi and Rwanda are at a low ebb, with Bujumbura and the United Nations accusing Kigali of supporting Burundian rebels.<\/p>\n<p>Burundi was plunged into crisis following over President Pierre Nkurunziza&#8217;s bid for a third term which he went on to win in a July election.<\/p>\n<p>More than 400 people have been killed since the violence erupted in April and more than 240,000 have fled.<\/p>\n<p>19|left><\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-10719 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/part-par-par8216889-1-1-0.jpg\" alt=\"Burundian soldiers withdraw from the restive Cibitoke neighbourhood in Bujumbura after a police operation on July 1, 2015 \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Nairobi (AFP) &#8211; Burundi launched a drive Tuesday to register all foreigners, sparking fears among overseas nationals that the scheme could be a pretext for government surveillance.} All non-Burundians in the crisis-hit country will be required to report to border police offices in the coming two months, according to a public security ministry spokesman. Several [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. 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