I'm a Burundian who lives in South Africa and holds a Rwandan refugee passport. Can I use this passport to travel to Kenya? I didn't use it when I came here to South Africa.
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1I’m not sure if it makes a difference but is your refugee passport issued under Convention 1951 or 1954? timaticweb2.com/integration/…– TravellerCommented Aug 23, 2019 at 13:41
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2@Traveller the 1954 convention has to do with statelessness, which doesn't apply here as OP is a national of Burundi.– phoogCommented Aug 23, 2019 at 15:03
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@phoog Thanks, yes, that’s what was confusing me. And hence why I didn’t attempt to answer :-)– TravellerCommented Aug 23, 2019 at 15:11
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1 Answer
It appears that you may be able to use this document to enter Kenya if you are granted a visa, for which the fee is $50 (source: Biometric passport gives Burundian refugees a second chance):
The document gives access in all the countries of the world except that of origin of the refugee. However, Kenya and Tanzania do not readily accept holders of this document and a $50 entry visa fee is charged for users. Rwanda hosts more than 172,000 refugees, more than 53 per cent of whom are Burundian.
Unfortunately, I have no idea whether "Kenya and Tanzania do not readily accept holders of this document" refers only to the $50 visa (which is in contrast to the privilege of Rwandan citizens to enter without a visa) or if it implies that additional difficulties might be in store.
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You might want to reword slightly as there is no longer any other answer so referring to it doesn't really make sense. Commented Aug 23, 2019 at 23:27
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Officially Kenya accepts convention travel documents. They did ratify the 1951 convention, after all. With regard to the document not being readily accepted, I suspect that it is because it was new at the time the article was written. Commented Aug 24, 2019 at 5:05
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@MichaelHampton or perhaps "readily accept" is an imprecise way of saying "admit without a visa," since the $50 visa fee seems to be mentioned as the consequence of the countries' not readily accepting those traveling with the document.– phoogCommented Aug 26, 2019 at 2:29
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That very well could be. Though, my understanding from reading some older news stories about refugees in Rwanda is that prior to this Rwanda had not been issuing any sort of travel documents to refugees. If I were a border guard I might be suspicious of a new travel document suddenly appearing. Commented Aug 26, 2019 at 3:07