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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Congolese refugees leave UNHCR compound

BANGUI, 16 April 2003 (IRIN) - Some 284 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who had camped on the premises of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) after the 15 March coup in the Central African Republic (CAR) have left, an official of the agency told IRIN on Tuesday.

UNHCR moved 30 of the refugees to Molangue refugee camp, about 140 km south of the capital, Bangui, "and the rest returned to their homes", the agency’s representative in the CAR, Emile Segbor, said.

The Congolese went the agency's compound for fear of reprisals by CAR nationals. They told UNHCR officials that since former CAR army chief of staff Francois Bozize seized power, CAR nationals had expressed "anti-Congolese feelings", over human rights excesses perpetrated by fighters of Jean-Pierre Bemba's Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC). The MLC had supported the now-ousted president, Ange-Felix Patasse, since October 2002 following a failed coup by Bozize. The MLC was accused of massive rapes and looting both in Bangui and in provincial towns

At the UNHCR compound, the Congolese refugees had been receiving food aid from the UN World Food Programme. Initially, almost all of them expressed their wish to be repatriated, but this was not possible as the transitional government was not yet in place.

"The reasons for their fear are no longer there," Segbor said on Tuesday.

He said that the UNHCR had asked the DRC embassy in Bangui to repatriate 1,000 Congolese from Bangui and the Molangue refugee camp. "We may start the first repatriations in a month," Segbor said.

Most of Congolese demanding repatriation, he said, were doing so mainly because of the deteriorating economic situation in CAR, and because anti-Congolese sentiment could resurface anytime.

With 10,000 people, the DRC has the second largest refugee community in the CAR, behind Sudan’s 35,000.

Themes: (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs

[ENDS]

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