Kinshasa – A key border crossing between Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi reopened on Monday after more than two months closed due to an armed offensive, officials told AFP.
Authorities on the Congo side and a Burundi police official at the frontier confirmed that the crossing had reopened.
The frontier post is on the main road from the Burundi economic capital Bujumbura and the DR Congo city of Uvira. Experts said the M23 offensive in December, aiming for Uvira, intended to cut Burundi’s military support for DR Congo forces.
Tens of thousands of Congolese fled into Burundi because of the offensive.
Economic contacts went ahead across Lake Tanganyika and the M23 withdrew from Uvira in South Kivu province in January, citing a demand from the United States, which has been seeking to mediate between DR Congo and Rwanda in the latest conflict to hit eastern DRC.
The mineral-rich region has been stricken by three decades of violent turmoil, the latest of which blew up after the resurgence of the Rwanda-backed M23 in 2021.
With the DRC army back in control of Uvira, authorities felt confident to reopen the frontier.
South Kivu governor Jean-Jacques Purusi said it had reopened at 8:00 am (0600 GMT) on Monday. A Burundi border police official told AFP, on condition of anonymity: “We can see a lot of Congolese returning home” across the frontier.
Other Burundi-DRC border posts in zones where the M23 forces are deployed remain closed, the sources said.
The UN says more than 80,000 people have fled from the M23 assault on Uvira to Burundi, where they are crowded into refugee camps.
“Many of us want to go home to Congo because here we are living in inhuman conditions,” said one inhabitant of a camp in the locality of Busuma, who asked not to be named.
“For now, the camp officials have not told us what is going to happen,” he told AFP.
The governor of South-Kivu province where Uvira is located told AFP that a decision would be taken “soon” about the return of refugees.
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Source: AFP
