Authorities in Dodoma pleaded with aid organizations to assist refugees housed in camps. It came after the World Food Programme said earlier that it would reduce food distribution for refugees in Tanzania owing to a serious financial shortage.
The nation urgently needs financial assistance to help the refugees who have come to the Nyarugusu camps in the Kigoma area, according to Sudi Mwakibasi, Director of the Refugee Services Department at the Ministry of Home Affairs. Mr. Mwakibasi disclosed that despite receiving 11,000 refugees from the DRC Congo this year, no assistance has been provided by the development partners.
Lack of money has also slowed down the voluntary repatriation of refugees to their home countries, including Burundi and the DRC. Transport and a subsidy for relocation are provided to those who consent to return.
For its programs in Tanzania, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that it requires a budget of at least $700 million. According to UNHCR data, Tanzania has increasingly been a destination for refugees fleeing conflict in its neighboring nations. The rebels in the country's east are to blame for the unrest in the DRC.
Between September 2022 and January 2023, hundreds of Congolese started entering Tanzania via the Kigoma area and Lake Tanganyika in order to find sanctuary, according to Tanzanian government authorities.
They are mostly accommodated at the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, which is close to the border with the DRC. However, officials have also documented unreported numbers entering across open borders.
At the same time that UN forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo started leaving the nation in an "accelerated withdrawal," a wave of refugees arrived.
The Stabilization Mission sent to the DRC will depart, according to a report presented to the UN Security Council by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, closing a contentious chapter but perhaps leaving behind a vacancy that might exacerbate the bloodshed in the nation.
