UNHCR Calls on Tanzania to Stop Deporting Mozambican Asylum Seekers

GENEVA - The UN refugee agency is reiterating its appeal to Tanzania to stop forcibly deporting asylum seekers fleeing violence in Mozambique’s volatile Cabo Delgado province. 

Reports say Tanzania has turned back more than 4,000 Mozambican asylum seekers since September.  The UN refugee agency says this includes more than 1,500 people who have been forcibly returned in the last month.  They currently are sheltering in dire conditions in the Negomano border point in Mozambique. The UNHCR participated in an interagency mission to this remote, hard-to-reach area in April.  Agency spokesman Boris Cheshirkov says the deportees told mission members they had hoped to find refuge in Tanzania after fleeing deadly attacks by armed groups in the town of Palma in March.