Nduta Camp, Tanzania - A bright purple bus roars into the dusty compound carrying scores of Burundians who have left their country to seek refuge in neighbouring Tanzania. Tit-for-tat attacks between the government and opposition have escalated over the recent post-election months, prompting thousands of people to flee.
Among the new arrivals escaping the daily violence and arriving at Nduta Camp in remote western Tanzania are 18-year-old Fulpence Ndikumwenayo and his cousin, 16-year-old Eliose Kabule. Afraid of being recruited into the Imbonerakure, the violence-prone youth wing of the ruling party, they decided to leave their home and to follow their older brothers across the border.
Over the past seven months of a crisis sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial decision to run for a third term, thousands  of minors have taken risky, unaccompanied journeys because they are afraid to stay in Burundi.
New arrivals from Burundi step off the bus, having been collected by humanitarian agencies from the border [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]
Join them or run
The boys explain how they left in the night after being asked to join the Imbonerakure. It was a two-day bus journey from their rural village in Rumonge Province, in the southwest of the country, to the eastern boundary of Burundi. They felt they had no choice but to leave, says Ndikumwenayo, a high school pupil. 
"We were followed home by the Imbonerakure. There were 10 of them carrying sticks and they asked us to join them. We refused, but they continued," he recalls.
"As we arrived they stopped, but they promised that even if we left they would find us and make us join them. We had to run away like our brothers."
Staring down at his yellow sandals, Kabule recalls how the group of youngsters set up makeshift road blocks to target suspected opposition supporters in the village of Kilama.