Burundi 'overwhelmed' as tens of thousands flee eastern Congo violence

GENEVA/BUJUMBURA, Dec 19 - Conflict in Congo has sent over 84,000 refugees fleeing into neighbouring Burundi this month in the second major influx this year, overwhelming the country's ability to respond, the U.N. refugee ‍agency said ​on Friday.

A U.S.-brokered peace deal was signed in June between the ‍Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, yet fighting between the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels and the Congolese army has continued around the ​eastern town ​of Uvira.

Rwanda denies supporting M23 and has blamed Congolese and Burundian forces for the renewed fighting. A report by a United Nations group of experts in July assessed that Rwanda exercised command and control over the ‍rebels.

"Thousands of people crossing the border on foot and by boats each day have overwhelmed local resources, creating ​a major humanitarian emergency that requires immediate global ⁠support," UNHCR said in a statement.

UNHCR's Burundi representative Brigitte Mukanga-eno told reporters in Geneva that boats full of refugees were arriving daily across Lake Tanganyika from the affected South Kivu area around Uvira despite pledges by M23 to withdraw.

Some of the boats are ​in poor condition, she said, and one capsized this week, drowning those aboard.

She described inadequate conditions in Burundi's camps with long queues ‌forming for limited food and water supplies and ​poor sanitary conditions leading to cholera outbreaks.

One refugee, Mapendo Malahaba, a 50-year-old mother of seven in Burundi's Gatumba refugee reception centre, told Reuters last week she had become separated from her children while fleeing.

Another refugee named Anzuruni at the same centre complained of resource shortages and open defecation nearby.

"We have no drinks, no toilets. The population is suffering...it's catastrophic," he said.

Burundi, one of the world's poorest countries, has launched an appeal for $35 million to help meet the immediate ‍needs, UNHCR's Mukanga-eno said, but prospects are uncertain with many international donors cutting aid sharply this ​year.

"We really hope that with the flash appeal, there will be some response as soon as possible, to avoid the conditions going ​from bad to worse," she said.

Earlier this year, the same conflict in Congo ‌prompted 70,000 to flee to Burundi in what was then the biggest influx in decades and only half of them have since returned, UNHCR said. REUTERS