Burundi plans to return Rwandan asylum seekers

BUJUMBURA, Apr 10 (Reuters) Burundi plans to start repatriating hundreds of illegal immigrants from neighbouring Rwanda after their claims for asylum were rejected, the interior and public security minister said today.

Years of conflict in the central African countries of Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo have forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to cross borders in search of safety.

Burundi, which hosts some 20,000 Rwandan refugees in camps in the north, has already sent thousands of Rwandans and Congolese home citing a potential threat to security in a volatile border area.

Burundian minister Evariste Ndayishimiye said the government had reviewed 450 out of 1,249 cases and found only 52 of them to be valid.

''Based ... on the results of the inquiry in the cases of those asylum seekers, Burundi is going to organise the return of those Rwandan citizens to their country of origin with dignity,'' he told a news conference.

He said the authorities would work with the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR and the Kigali government to transfer the immigrants.

Last June, thousands of Rwandan Hutus returned home from Burundi, where they had fled in fear of persecution after the 1994 genocide.

The United Nations accused Burundi of returning them forcibly and violating an international convention on refugees.

REUTERS SRS HS2134