$12 Per Person Per Month: Aid for Congolese Refugees in Burundi Nears Funding Cliff

World Food Programme rations of just about $12 per person per month are pushing more than 30,000 Congolese refugees in Burundi into deeper uncertainty. According to Africanews, the World Food Programme is seeking more than $30 million in funding to maintain food assistance for Congolese refugees in Burundi, or supplies could run out as early as October 2026.

According to the agency's estimates, about $5 million per month is needed to maintain assistance for Congolese refugees across Burundi, of which the eastern Busuma camp alone requires $1 million per month. The Busuma camp was established in December 2025 and currently houses approximately 33,000 Congolese refugees; UNHCR has also confirmed that 22,463 refugees have returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo. With refugee inflows and returns occurring simultaneously, the overall scale and direction remain unclear.

The ration level is the other side of this figure: each refugee receives only about 38,000 Burundian francs per month, equivalent to roughly $12. Nayonde Mbirizi, a 40-year-old Congolese refugee, told aid agencies that the existing assistance is far from sufficient to address the situation she and her companions face, and noted that strong winds and continuously aging tents are making conditions in the camp worse.

The alarm over the funding crunch has long been sounded. On July 24 of this year, the World Food Programme warned that assistance might be difficult to sustain until August 2027. Africanews quoted Jean de Lestrange, the agency's partnerships and communications officer, as saying that, with the support of the Burundian government, some donors provided part of the initially requested funds, temporarily resolving a crisis of sudden disruption, but "these additional supports can only keep assistance going for a few more months."

Delegations from the European Union, Switzerland, and the European Commission's Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) have traveled to Busuma to assess local conditions. The report did not disclose the funding proportions of major donors, nor did it explain the specific origins of the funding gap; meanwhile, according to the World Food Programme's own estimates, the required $5 million per month is itself already the minimum line for maintaining basic survival in a protracted refugee situation.