For more than a year and a half, this group of refugees - which is predominantly made up of Rwandans and Burundians - has been barely surviving in unofficial camps, unable to legally work and without any humanitarian aid.

Officials have insisted that the refugees must return to Tanzania, the country where many of them first fled to due to instability in Rwanda.

“The United Nations must work with the Ugandan government to find a way to protect this vulnerable group,” said Deirdre Clancy, the Director of the Lawyers Committee’s International Refugee program.

Many of the refugee group, which is known as the Kibati group, are indeed refugees who sought refuge in the past from Tanzania. But with the commencement of a massive repatriation campaign from Tanzania at the end of last year many of them feared they would be forced home against their will. They claim to have left Tanzania in search of adequate protection in Uganda.

Without recognition of their status as refugees in Uganda, however, members of the Kibati group have been eking out a precarious living on the fringes of the long established Nakivale refugee camp in the Mbarara district, completely unassisted by the international community. Although local authorities have made strenuous efforts to ensure the physical security of the group, and the Red Cross provides the most urgent of emergency health care, the members of the group are vulnerable to harassment and arrest if they venture outside the camps to search for the work and food upon which their survival depends.

The Ugandan government has, commendably, not made any attempts to forcibly return the group to either their countries of origin or to Tanzania. But with little indication that their requests for protection will be examined in the near future, the Kibati group is in an increasingly desperate situation in Uganda.

Many of the Lawyers Committee’s concerns were spelled out in a letter to Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers, who is expected to meet with Ugandan officials this weekend.

Is there a need for protection?

The core reason for the refusal to examine the status of the Kibati group is the assertion that members of the Kibati group should return to Tanzania in order to avail of the protection of their country of first asylum. The Lawyers Committee believes that such reasoning is insufficient.

First, refugees often have entirely legitimate reasons for leaving their country of first asylum. Where a genuine fear of persecution is expressed, including that relating to a country of first asylum, the claim must be examined by the receiving country. UNHCR reported in March 2003, for example, that many Rwandan refugees in Tanzania were expressing credible fears relating to forcible return to, and persecution in, Rwanda.

Second, not all of the Kibati group are Rwandan refugees who enjoyed asylum in Tanzania immediately prior to their arrival in Uganda. Some of the Kibati group are former Rwandan refugees from Tanzania who in fact returned to their homes in Rwanda during the repatriation operation or earlier, but were unable to find safety. They thus once again were forced to seek refuge outside the country—this time in Uganda.

Others in the Kibati group are not Rwandans, but Burundians—from a country where civil strife is still rife. Certainly some of the Burundian refugees did come directly from Tanzania—but they claim to have been warned by local authorities that they would be next in line, after the Rwandan population, for forced return. Others admit that they had, in the past, sought refuge in Tanzania, but that they had since that time returned home to Burundi. They say, however, that they have now been forced to flee afresh to Uganda as hostilities escalate.

It is eminently clear that there are serious protection issues which need to be examined in many of these cases.

What about human rights violators?

The profile of the Kibati group suggests that there may be well founded suspicions that a number of individuals participated in the 1994 genocide or in serious crime either in Rwanda or elsewhere. This makes it all the more urgent, therefore, that the identity and genuine protection needs of this group are determined—those who are entirely innocent of such charges, or who do not pose any security risk, should not suffer from the collective attribution of guilt.

In addition, while it is vital to protect the rights of those who may face unfounded accusations of participation in the genocide, it is also important that those who have committed serious crimes not be allowed to exploit the refugee protection regime to the detriment of both refugees and the host country. In the context of a complex of delicate legal and political factors, screening of the group is essential for reasons of regional security.

The Lawyers Committee’s recommendations

The Lawyers Committee recommends urgently that

• a process is initiated to determine the status of the Kibati group;
  
  
• clear guidelines are drawn up and implemented for the application of the exclusion provisions of the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1969 OAU Refugee Convention (which stipulate that those in relation to whom there are serious reasons for considering that they have committed serious crimes are excluded from protection as refugees) by way of a thorough and transparent screening procedure;
  
  
• UNHCR and the international community offers its assistance to the Ugandan government in drawing up plans for, and in the operation of, any screening procedure;
  
  
• arrangements are made for immediate provision of adequate humanitarian assistance to the Kibati group. This could include the issuing of a request to the World Food Program to commence assessment of food and shelter needs. The Red Cross should also be invited to ensure that medical care is made available to the Kibati group at their nearby Nakivale refugee camp facilities.