AP News, May 18th, 2007
A group of 88 Burundians who have lived as refugees in neighboring Tanzania for up to 35 years on Friday became the first of some 8,500 to head to the United States for a new life.
The U.N. refugee agency said the Burundians flew from Kibondo Camp in the western African country of Tanzania to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. From there they will continue to various cities in the United States, including Atlanta and Phoenix. Other locations have yet to be determined, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. State Department announced the plan in October, saying it was a response to a request from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. It said that the refugees brought to the United States will be given the option of applying for U.S. citizenship.
The U.N. said a further 3,000 refugees would leave Tanzania for the U.S. over the next 15 weeks, and the remaining 5,400 Burundians would follow by the end of the year.
The agency said its priority was to repatriate as many Burundians as possible, but that some refugees _ including the group leaving Tanzania now _ would face severe difficulties reintegrating in their homeland after decades abroad.
Those born in Tanzania identify closely with the host country, but that country "cannot offer them local integration," the agency said.
Burundi has long been divided by tension between the majority Tutus and minority Tutsis, who dominated the government after independence from Belgium in 1962.
The assassination of the country's first democratically elected president in 1993 ignited a 12-year civil war that killed some 250,000 Burundians.
