Tanzania to revoke citizenship of disobedient refugees: PM

Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Sunday the government will not hesitate revoking citizenship granted to Burundian refugees who were disobedient.

"The government will revoke citizenship to given to Burundian refugees who are disobedient. They will also be repatriated to their respective country of origin," Majaliwa told naturalized Burundian refugees living at Katumba in Katavi region.

"A good number of refugees who were granted citizenship are abusing the offer by bringing in their relatives. This is unacceptable," said the prime minister who was on a visit to the region.

Majaliwa directed the Katavi regional defence and security committee to conduct a special inspection in Katumba and Mishamo refugee camps in order to establish whether they were refugees who had been brought in by their relatives who have secured citizenship.

He said the inspection at Katumba and Mishamo refugee camps in Katavi region should also target refugees in illegal possession of firearms.

"The only person that is legally allowed to carry a firearm in Tanzania is a policeman," said Majaliwa.

He said border regions should be highly protected to ensure that refugees were not fleeing to the east African nation illegally.

"If we allow uncontrolled entry of refugees through our border regions we will create a horrible situation," said the prime minister.

In 2014, Tanzania granted citizenship to 162,156 former Burundian refugees, marking the largest group in which naturalisation had been offered by a country of first asylum as a solution to their decades in exile.

In December 2007, the government of Tanzania announced its willingness to offer naturalisation to the former Burundian refugees in an effort to end protracted refugee situations in the country.

The refugees have historically lived in three settlement areas in Tabora and Katavi regions in western Tanzania since 1972 and had become largely self-supporting and taxpaying members of society.

Tanzania previously granted naturalization to some 32,000 Rwandan refugees in 1982, and in February 2014 the country concluded the naturalization of 3,000 Somali Bantu refugees who had fled Somalia in 1991, after the fall of the Siad Barre regime. Endit