GITEGA October 26th (ABP) – The director general in charge of repatriation at the Ministry of the Interior, Community Development and Public Security, Mr. Nestor Bimenyimana, asked the governors of provinces and municipal administrators across the country to become more involved in improving the reception conditions for returnees and internally displaced persons.
He also recommended that they pass this message on to the administrative authorities under their responsibility as well as to the population to reserve the legendary Burundian hospitality to those people.
Mr. Bimenyimana delivered these remarks during the official launch of the project to sensitize the community and local authorities on the reception of returnees and internally displaced persons for social cohesion, held on Friday, October 22, 2021, in Gitega, the capital country policy. “When the welcome is not warm to these people, we must expect them to turn back,” he explained, specifying that they carry within them traumas or the after-effects of situations that had pushed them to leave their native land. He indicated that this project will start activities in twenty-one communes identified in eight provinces to subsequently extend to all communes.
In terms of exchanges, the participants in that event asked questions for clarification to remove gray areas or made proposals in favor of the socio-professional reintegration of returnees or internally displaced persons. Among these is that linked to the forecasting of a budget for people who have learned trades with a view to providing them with equipment for the performance of their trades. “This way would help them easily resume the normal course of their lives and contribute to the development of the country,” argued one of the participants. The director general in charge of repatriation has let it be known that he takes note of this suggestion, specifying that he will forward it to his hierarchy. He took the opportunity to thank the High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for its multiple support in the repatriation of Burundians.
In turn, the program officer in that UN agency in Burundi promised that the UNHCR will remain alongside Burundi in the execution of the above-mentioned project.