“I am Phoebe, a 36 years old mother of six. I walked for three days straight with my children wailing for their father. Their father, my husband, was killed days ago. I have just arrived in Mtendeli refugee camp.

We used to have a shop back home in Burundi. My husband sold daily necessity items in our kiosk before violence erupted. Life was comfortable. We did not have a lot, but we were happy.

We were simple folks and we did not care much about politics. But look at what has happened to us now. I remember vividly the day I lost my husband.

I had just returned home from the farm to help my husband at the kiosk. He had been serving bottled drinks to a group of men at the shop and was fetching the bills when one of them threatened to kill him for asking them to pay. What happened after was beyond comprehension. They took his life away, for what? For asking them to pay their bills after having consumed drinks from our shop.

The next day, in a panic state, I gathered my children and whatever little belongings I could carry with me and walked through the bush out of fear that the perpetrators would return. I walked day and night for three days with my children to cross the border to Tanzania after hearing from neighbours of the safe haven camps opened by the Tanzania Government and UNHCR. Every night, I pleaded to stay in any random houses we could find and survived only through compassion of those who were willing to assist us with shelter for the night. On my journey, I saw a lot of people were trying to flee too. Some of them are families, some are children without parents. There were two unaccompanied children who were left behind. Some people in the village begged me to take them because no one else would. My instinct as a mother kicked in, I did not think twice, so I took them along as we heard news about group of armed men moving closer.

How can I leave them behind? These are innocent children. They could have been my children struggling to fend for their own lives after their parents were killed. Now, I am their mother, but they are someone else’s children. I hope UNHCR will be able to continue to support us here until things are back to normal in Burundi. I cannot even imagine returning home with the current situation. When things settle here in the camp, I want to call my mother so she can also arrange to travel here. It is not safe back home.”

Written by Gina Meutia, UNHCR

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