The 1972 Burundians
Hutu Burundians who fled the killings of 1972 into Tanzania, were settled in three great camps in the western forests, farmed there for four decades, and became the longest-standing refugee population in Africa before Tanzania offered them citizenship and then hesitated.
Identity
Population: Around 200,000 at peak; roughly 160,000 naturalised or in process since 2007
Location: The Old Settlements of Ulyankulu, Katumba and Mishamo in western Tanzania, and returnee communities in Burundi
Language: Kirundi and Swahili, with Swahili dominant in the second and third generations
Language family: Niger-Congo → Bantu (J60, Rwanda-Rundi); Swahili (G40)
Traditional governance: Settlement administration under Tanzanian authority for four decades; naturalised citizens since 2014, with residence and relocation questions still unsettled.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups — clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes — each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Ulyankulu, Katumba and Mishamo
The three Old Settlements, each effectively a town of tens of thousands.
The naturalised
Around 160,000 granted Tanzanian citizenship from 2010, most of them born in the settlements.
Returnees to Burundi
Those who went back after 2002, often to land occupied in their absence.
Culture
Clothing: Tanzanian dress; kitenge and kanga; Burundian ceremonial dress kept for weddings and for the older generation.
Food: Maize, cassava and beans grown on settlement plots; the settlements became tobacco producers of national significance, which is part of why Tanzania valued them.
Ceremonies: Weddings with Burundian drumming; funerals; church services in Kirundi and Swahili; commemorations of 1972 that Burundi itself has never officially held.
Marriage customs: Bridewealth in the Burundian pattern in the first generation, increasingly Tanzanian practice since; extensive intermarriage with surrounding communities.
Initiation rites: Schooling in Swahili, which produced a generation fluent in Tanzania and unfamiliar with Burundi; the citizenship application itself functioned as a passage for many.
Stories & Oral Literature
1972Historical account
Following a Hutu-led uprising in the south, the Burundian army and government killed somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people over several months, targeting the educated: teachers, civil servants, secondary school pupils. Several hundred thousand fled, most into Tanzania. Burundi has never held an official commemoration, and the events are known in Kirundi simply as ikiza, the catastrophe.
The Longest WaitContemporary account
Tanzania settled the refugees on land in the western regions and let them farm it. Forty years later they had built towns, schools and a substantial tobacco economy. In 2007 Tanzania made an offer almost unprecedented in modern refugee policy: citizenship for all of them. Around 160,000 accepted. The certificates were then held up for years over whether the newly naturalised would have to leave the settlements, and the matter was only partly resolved in 2014.
Proverbs
“Uwutazi aho ava ntamenya aho aja.”
“One who does not know where he comes from does not know where he is going.”
Origin and direction, in a generation born in exile.
“We planted for forty years on borrowed ground.”
Farming without title.
“The paper came before the permission to stay.”
Citizenship granted and residence still questioned.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: Imana as creator in Kirundi cosmology; Christianity dominant, with the churches of the settlements central to community life.
Beliefs: Roman Catholicism and Pentecostal churches; the settlements' churches functioned as the main institutions outside the administration; ancestral practice attenuated by distance from home ground.
Ancestors: The community's dead are increasingly buried in Tanzania rather than Burundi, which is itself the strongest argument the naturalised generation makes about where they belong.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Imana
The creator of Kirundi cosmology
The churches of the settlements
Not deities, but the institutions that held the community together across four decades
Abazimu
The ancestors, whose graves are mostly in a country the younger generation has never seen
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Planned settlements laid out on a grid by Tanzanian authorities and UNHCR in the 1970s, since grown into substantial towns with markets, schools and clinics.
Building techniques: Mud brick and thatch initially, fired brick and sheet roofing as the settlements consolidated; tobacco curing barns are the characteristic structure.
Village layout: Villages on a surveyed grid with allocated farm plots behind, a layout designed for temporary accommodation and inhabited for fifty years.
Artifacts
The Old Settlements
Heritage site
Ulyankulu, Katumba and Mishamo, planned camps that became towns.
Tobacco curing barns
Livelihood
Structures of an export economy built by people without citizenship.
Naturalisation certificates
Archive
Documents issued to around 160,000 people from 2010, then held up for years.
Burundian drums in exile
Instrument
Ceremonial drumming maintained across two generations away from home.
Historical Timeline
April–August 1972
Mass killings in Burundi; estimates run from 100,000 to 200,000 dead, concentrated among the educated.
1972–1978
Around 200,000 refugees are settled in three planned settlements in western Tanzania.
1980s–2000s
The settlements become self-sufficient and a significant tobacco-producing region.
2007–2010
Tanzania offers citizenship; around 160,000 apply and are approved.
2014
Certificates are finally issued after a long dispute over whether the naturalised must relocate.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- UNHCR: Burundian refugees in TanzaniaUNHCR
- Britannica: Burundi — historyEncyclopaedia Britannica
Premium & scholarly sources