"Despite growing refugee return movements, the post-return experiences of returnees remain comparatively underexplored, particularly in highly politicised contexts where speech itself carries risk. This article examines how returnees in Burundi narrate their experiences of return, and the role silence plays in these narratives. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation conducted in Burundi in 2024 and 2025, it focuses on two major waves of forced displacement and return following the events of 1993 and 2015. The article makes three interrelated arguments. First, return to ‘post-crisis’ Burundi is shaped by the convergence of a politicised discourse surrounding return and an institutionalised culture of silence, embedded in the country’s history of conflicts, repeated displacement, and refugee governance, making return a politically charged movement. Second, returnees deploy multiple and layered registers of silence (evasion and concealment) as active, relational practices to strategically navigate life upon return. Third, these registers of silence constitute a form of engagement with the everyday politics of post-return. This empirical evidence from Burundi contributes to growing scholarly discussions on the politics of silence in ‘post-crisis’ and (forced) migration contexts." (Abstract)