The Tanzanian police last Saturday handed over about forty Burundian children to Burundi at the Mugina border post in Mabanda commune in Makamba province (southern Burundi). Another 29 including 16 minors, were turned back the next day. According to police sources, these Burundians were arrested and detained before being expelled.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

All the deportees were intercepted during a police raid targeting households that employ minors in the Kasuru district in northwestern Tanzania, according to our sources. The people concerned had ended up in Tanzania after being deceived by Burundian nationals who had promised to find them work.

« To enter Tanzania, we used different clandestine entry points, » said a minor who was deported last Tuesday. Once they arrived in Tanzania, it was the smugglers and traffickers who organized the dispatching.

The 40 minors reached the border very hungry, tired, and desperate, a police source revealed to SOS Médias Burundi.
They were deported after three days of detention in unbearable conditions in Tanzanian jails.

The commune of Mabanda, which borders Tanzania, helped move these minors to the communal police station.

Here too, the Mabanda administration « was unable to take charge of these children due to the lack of sufficient resources in this improvised situation, » according to a local administrative source.

The provinces of origin of the 40 minors have been identified. They are Gitega and Karusi (central-east), Ruyigi and Ngozi (northeast) and Bururi in the south.

Police sources say that smugglers and traffickers receive colossal sums in Burundian francs and Tanzanian shillings when they send these children to Tanzania.

« None of them had a cent on them, » regrets a police officer who is part of the team that welcomed these minors at the Mugina border post.

The next day, 29 other Burundians, including 16 minors, arrived in Mugina around 10:30 p.m., in the same conditions as the first group. The deportees spent the night in the open.
Police and administrative sources deplored that « the Tanzanian services sent them to us without warning us ».

Some of the 29 Burundians who were expelled by Tanzania on September 18, 2024, DR

Members of this second team come mainly from the provinces of Karusi, Ruyigi and Ngozi. According to a document from the Tanzanian immigration services dated September 18 seen by SOS Médias Burundi, all 69 extradited were accused of « staying illegally on Tanzanian soil ».

« After being informed of their offense, the individuals have just four days to leave Tanzanian territory, using their own funds ».

It is not yet clear whether the people who were recently expelled paid fines or bribes. A practice that has become commonplace in northwestern Tanzania in recent times, in the context of arrests of Burundian nationals.

When Burundians are expelled by Tanzania, administrative and police officials in border areas identify those extradited before transferring them to their native regions.

The National Federation for Children’s Rights FENADEB welcomes the extradition of these minors.

However, it deplores the conditions in which they are expelled.

As for the National Observatory for the Fight against Transnational Crime, « ONLCT où est ton frère ? », it is time for the Burundian authorities to take the bull by the horns.

Its representative, Prime Mbarubukeye, asks them in particular to « order the joint security committees of all the border provinces of Tanzania to redouble their vigilance to thwart the action of traffickers of Burundian children bound for Tanzania ». This observatory also urges the Burundian government to « simplify the formalities required to obtain travel documents », considering that the longer and more tiring the procedures for applying for these travel documents become, the more they become factors favoring human trafficking and irregular migration.

According to the Consul General of Burundi in Kigoma (northwestern Tanzania), Jérémie Kekenwa, at least 600 Burundian nationals were in detention in the Kigoma region until the end of May.

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The 40 minors who were expelled by Tanzania on September 17, 2024, DR