{"id":41923,"date":"2020-08-27T15:49:32","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T15:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/first-batch-of-471-burundian-refugees-goes-home\/"},"modified":"2020-08-29T20:09:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-29T20:09:31","slug":"first-batch-of-471-burundian-refugees-goes-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/first-batch-of-471-burundian-refugees-goes-home\/","title":{"rendered":"First batch of 471 Burundian refugees goes home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early in the morning, the first passengers boarded a truck from Mahama camp to the Rwanda-Burundi border in Nemba in Bugesera District, donning masks, drinking water and seated in a bus respecting social distance as a measure of preventing Coronavirus spread. The total number of registered applicants is 1,800, but Burundi has announced that it will receive about 500 in the first phase.<\/p>\n<p>The Burundians returned home voluntarily, expressing great joy at their returning home five years after fleeing the political turmoil that erupted when President Nkurunziza sought to run for a third term.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I heard that they had a refugee resettlement plan, I immediately decided to return. I was happy to be back in my country. I came to Rwanda 2017 from Kirundo.\u201d Said Ndezi Nastivine<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was pleased by the news of going back home. It is time for me to return to my former job at the bank, I no longer have a reason to be kept in refugee,\u201d Said Philbert Harerimana another refugee.<\/p>\n<p>{{Some refused to return home}}<\/p>\n<p>Burundian refugees, who have returned, are voluntary registered but some say they refused to return.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI ran away from being persecuted by the television and it didn\u2019t end there. In 2014, my house was burned to the ground, when I found new a place to live, they would come and spy on me at night and decided to run away,\u201dNiyonzima Prudence said.<br \/>\nNiyonzima said he would return to Burundi if security was assured.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome are still dying, others are still being persecuted. I will go back when I hear that no one is being persecuted, no one is being killed, no one is disappearing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Rwanda hosts about 72,000 Burundian refugees. From 2015 to March when the border was closed due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, about 5,922 had voluntarily returned to Burundi.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-36572 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/png\/1-63-6abb0.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-36573 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/png\/2-61-447e2.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-36574 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/png\/3-52-1875e.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-36575 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/5-1816-6feec.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-36576 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/10-978-22bf5.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-36577 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/11-944-2aac4.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-36578 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/15-552-bee36.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-36579 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/1-3292-34cb8.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first batch of 471 Burundian refugees who had been in Rwanda for five years have returned home, Thursday, August 27, after a joint discussion on the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[2942],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-41923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-nicole-kamanzi-m"],"bylines":[{"id":2942,"name":"Nicole Kamanzi M.","slug":"nicole-kamanzi-m","description":"","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":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2942,"name":"Nicole Kamanzi M.","slug":"nicole-kamanzi-m","description":"","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":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41923"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=41923"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=41923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}