“We cook outside on a small stove and we all sleep in one room.“There are no tensions between refugees but, sometimes, groups of men from the militia group have tried to infiltrate the camp and threaten people.” “Sometimes there is not enough soap to keep the children clean,” she says. Their father, who works as a cleaner and gardener at the camp, is not around so she has her hands full. Inside their hut, Mireille’s eldest son lies on a mat, resting his head in his brother’s lap while she feeds the baby. Now their hopes for improving his health have been placed on hold. “My eldest son is very sick and it was hard to bring him - he can’t talk or walk.”īefore leaving the couple had been seeking to take him to India for an operation on his spine.

“My husband was in a demonstration and the police were looking for him, so we had to get out,” she says. Mireille, 30, arrived in the camp in August 2015 with her husband, 32, their eight-year-old son, who is disabled, and his brothers, aged four and one. New semi-permanent shelters are built in Mahama refugee camp. Emergency tents have given way to hundreds of neat rows of brick huts stretching out along the border with Tanzania, the fringes of Rwandan’s eastern neighbour clearly visible in the distance. Since 2015, the camp has been transformed. The clampdown on protesters and ensuing violence led to an estimated 1,200 deaths and has forced 400,000 people into exile.Ībout 174,000 Burundians reside in Rwanda, with the Mahama camp supporting the biggest share, roughly 64,000 inhabitants. Others have been here since 2015, when the news that Nkurunziza would seek a third term as president – a move his opponents deemed unconstitutional – led to a failed coup. They are against the referendum and the government is killing them.” They said they would cut my neck again,” she explains, running her hand along her scars.įlorida Uwera, education assistant at the camp, says: “We have seen a sharp increase in the number of refugees arriving every day. “I left because these women threatened me. It made it unsafe for me to stay,” says Aline. “The women of the ruling party tried to make me join their campaign, but I refused. The campaign has been marked by allegations of widespread intimidation and violence against opposition supporters. The vote could allow the extension of Pierre Nkurunziza’s term from five to seven years, paving the way for him to stay in power until 2034, as the proposed changes would allow him to stand for re-election despite having already served three terms. With the nation gripped by violence in the prelude to a controversial referendum vote on 17 May, the conflict in her home country is this time drawn along political rather than ethnic lines.

She fled to neighbouring Rwanda in December and now lives among an estimated 64,000 Burundians at the Mahama refugee camp in Kirehe province. Now 30 and with her own young family, Aline finds her life in turmoil once more due to the violence and instability that blights Burundi.

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