DESPERATE: A Burundi refugee with his ailing baby 'on a drip' on arrival at Kigoma port from the Kagunga Village entry point yesterday. (Photo: Correspondent Joctan Ngelly)
BY LUSEKELO PHILEMON
The Foreign Affairs ministers of the East African Community (EAC) yesterday directed the EAC Panel of Eminent Persons and COMESA Committee of Elders to visit Bujumbura to continue with consultations with all actors and thereafter brief the summit on the situation in Burundi.
They made the directives here when they held an emergency meeting, which was chaired by the chairman of the EAC Council of Ministers, and Minister of East African Cooperation, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, to address matters emerging in Burundi.
The in-camera meeting was called following the directives issued by the EAC Heads of the State at their 13th extra-ordinary Summit held on May 13, this year in Dar es Salaam.
Briefing reporters here, EAC secretary general, Dr Richard Sezibera said the regional elders will be led by retired Justice and Former Prime Minister, Judge Joseph Warioba.
According to him, the chairperson of the Council of Ministers and Secretary General (Sezibera) will urgently visit Burundi to assess the situation on the ground.
The EAC chief disclosed that the trading bloc ministers and cabinet secretaries will also visit refugee camps hosting refugees from Burundi both in Tanzania and Rwanda to assess the humanitarian situation in the camps.
He however said the meeting deliberated on the current situation in Burundi and preparation for the Summit which will be convened by the Heads of State in Dar es Salaam in the unspecified dates.
Meanwhile, Devota Mwachang’a reports that Tanzania had confirmed a cholera outbreak on Monday at a refugee camp sheltering thousands of people who had fled political unrest in neighbouring Burundi.
"We can confirm that there is an outbreak of cholera at the Burundi refugee camp in Tanzania," Health Ministry spokesman Nsachris Mwamwaja said.
"The Ministry of Health is sending a team of medical experts to the Burundi refugee camp in Tanzania to deal with the cholera outbreak."
The number of Burundi refugees who died in Kigoma had risen to 15 from six reported last week.
Equally, the number of Burundians crossing into Tanzania to seek refuge had risen to over 70,000 by yesterday morning.
The spokesman for the Home Affairs Ministry, Isaac Nantanga, told The Guardian by telephone yesterday that the number of Burundians reported who have died so far has risen to 15 following the earlier death of nine.
Nantanga said out of the deceased 15 refugees, 14 died in Kigoma Urban and Kagunga while one died at the Nyarugusu camp.
According to reports, the refugees died from diarrhoea, although the spokesman said their samples were taken to the Kigoma Regional Hospital, Maweni, to establish the source of their death.
Said he: “Following the increasing number of Burundians who cross the border to seek refuge in Tanzania, the government is working hard to provide social services.
”It is improving sanitation in order to safeguard them from the outbreak of diseases,” he said, noting that the government was doing so in collaboration with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
He said until yesterday morning the number of refugees was 73,490, of whom the Nyarugusu camp had 24,479 while the Kagunga border village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika had 45,000.
The place is the centre where refugees wait before being taken to Kigoma municipality and then to the Nyarugusu camp). Other 4011 refugees were at the Lake Tanganyika Stadium in Kigoma municipality, he said.
Last week, the Kigoma Regional Defence and Security Committee appealed to the UNHCR to speed up the improvement of infrastructure at Kagunga village.
This is where vetting and registration of Burundi refugees takes place before they are transported to the Nyarugusu Refugee camp.
Kagunga village was reported to lack necessary social services to meet the growing demand of refugees. The village has neither reliable, clean and safe water nor sanitation facilities that include latrines and critical medical services.
According to authorities, the number of Burundi refugees at Kagunga has reached almost 100,000 and the four latrines available for them are hardly sufficient. This makes most of them to have no choice but to relieve themselves in the bushes and on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.
The Chairman of the Kigoma Regional Defence and Security Committee, Issa Machibya, told reporters that unless UNHCR improves social services, chances are that an epidemic will erupt.
Doubling as the Kigoma Regional Commissioner, he said: “We call upon the UNHCR to help us complete the construction of emergency latrines and work on getting water and medical assistance.”
Meanwhile, Machibya said more police, military and health officials as well as Red Cross personnel would be dispatched in Kagunga to render humanitarian assistance to the refugees.
He said his committee was looking into the possibility of increasing the number of Burundi refugees being transported to the Kigoma refugee camp to ease pressure on the Kagunga camp.
He said the government would establish another refugee camp at Nyarugusu, to be called Nyarugusu B, in order to cope with the increasing number of Burundi refugees.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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