Burundi was the first country to offer troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2022 as part of east Africa’s peace drive after a wave of attacks from the rebel group known as Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23).
Burundi shares a 243km border with the DRC. Most of it runs through the Rusizi/Ruzizi river to the north and Lake Tanganyika to the south. It has been described as one of the most porous borders in Africa’s Great Lakes region. This makes it particularly vulnerable to the spillover effects of conflict from one country into the other. Burundi currently hosts around 86,857 refugees from the DRC, a large number given Burundi’s population size of around 12.6 million.
