MPANDA, Tanzania (AlertNet) - Festo Bizimaana couldn't stop smiling when he found his name on the list - it showed which Burundian refugees, like the 47-year-old, can now call themselves Tanzanians.
He had waited almost his whole life for this.
"Today marks a new era in my life and I will make the most of it," said Bizimaana, one of the more than 162,000 Burundian refugees granted Tanzanian citizenship since 2008, when those who fled ethnic conflict in Burundi in 1972 and their children were given the choice to either return to their homeland or apply for naturalisation.
Bizimaana was 10 years old when his parents were killed and he left Burundi, together with over 200,000 Burundians who fled to Tanzania almost four decades ago.
He has since been living in a refugee settlement, with both his freedom of movement and access to employment and vital services like health care restricted by Tanzanian law.
"Now that I am a Tanzanian, I am going to travel around preaching the word of God," said Bizimaana who runs a small Christian church in the Katumba refugee settlement.
Most of today's refugees have been born in Tanzania and have no ties in Burundi.
"We felt that it was not good for them - but also for the security of Tanzania - to have a group of close to 200,000 who have no place to call home," Tanzania's Interior Minister Lawrence Masha told AlertNet.
Tanzanian authorities issue renewable permits to leave refugee camps for a maximum of 14 days and any violations are punishable by fines of up to 50,000 shillings (about $45) or imprisonment of up to six months.
"Since I was born, I have not known any home outside Katumba camp and I had to get special permission to pursue my studies in Dar es Salaam," said Donacian Asuman, a 34-year-old Burundian refugee studying to be a teacher.
All that will change for naturalised refugees.
"The citizens of Tanzania, they are free to live everywhere within the country and they will have access to social services like any other Tanzanians," said Masha.
The government said it would soon start allocating land to the former refugees across Tanzania to help them grow food and integrate in their new home country.
In addition to the 1972 wave, there was a large influx of refugees from Burundi in 1993. Tanzania also hosts refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.
U.N. refugee agency chief Antonio Guterres, who toured Tanzania's refugee settlements this week, called on countries in the region that host refugees to consider granting them citizenship.
"This is a remarkable decision in the history of refugee protection and I also urge other countries hosting big numbers of refugees, with no chance of going back home, to do what Tanzania has done," he told AlertNet.
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