Burundian refugees who returned home on Thursday say they left camps in Tanzania because women are often raped when they go looking for firewood and because Tanzanian police have beaten and arrested men.
Reuters interviewed 10 of the 590 refugees who returned, the first batch transported under an August agreement between Burundi and Tanzania to repatriate nearly 200,000 refugees from camps in neighboring Tanzania, where they had sought refuge from a surge of political violence at home.
The agreement sparked fears among some refugees they might be forced home despite assurances from both governments and the United Nations that would not happen.