Since mid January 2009, Burundi has expelled around 5000 foreigners Hapamedia has learnt from a United Nations source.

The Burundian government blames foreigners of not having legal residence papers and also of being responsible for the majority of the crimes cases witnessed in the country.

The foreigners expelled are mainly from DR Congo, Rwandans, Tanzanians, Ugandans, and Senegalese.

Many of those expelled had already acquired Burundians papers or possessed United Nations High Commission for Refugee's mandate. The Burundians tore all of documents presented to them by foreigners before gathering them in a stadium and loading them into Lorries that drove them to the nearest border.

Human rights activists have denounced the conditions in which people have been detained.

Congolese and Rwandans form the biggest group of foreigners in the country because of previous or current instabilities in their homelands. A lot of lectures, teachers and people in the administration are drawn from the Burundi based Congolese community.

Burundi is a small enclave country recovering from war chaos that shares frontiers with DR Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania . It's very interesting to see the country declaring total war to its neighbours.

The xenophobia fever started in South Africa and seems to contaminate more and more countries.