Rwanda expels over 1,500 Burundians as relations fray

Rwanda has expelled more than 1,300 Burundians in the past week after they refused to move to refugee camps, senior Burundi officials said on Monday, amid signs a political crisis is testing relations between the neighbouring countries. Rwandan officials were not immediately available for comment on the reported removals of Burundians who had been working […]

Rwanda has expelled more than 1,300 Burundians in the past week after they refused to move to refugee camps, senior Burundi officials said on Monday, amid signs a political crisis is testing relations between the neighbouring countries.
Rwandan officials were not immediately available for comment on the reported removals of Burundians who had been working there, many of them for years – an account confirmed by one of those affected.
Rwanda has been hosting tens of thousands of people who have fled more than a year of political violence in Burundi – and others who have crossed the border for years for work, often without formal permission.
“They were asked to go to refugee camps or return back to Burundi,” the governor of Burundi’s Kirundo province next to the Rwandan border, Melchior Nankwahomba, said.
Rwanda has denied Burundi’s accusations.