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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DRC: Nearly 5,000 flee to Burundi after rebel offensive in South Kivu

NAIROBI, 13 May 2003 (IRIN) - Nearly 5,000 people were forced to flee across a river to Burundi to escape a rebel offensive over the weekend in South Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), reported on Monday.

UNHCR said that 4,860 Congolese swam across the Ruzizi River, pushing belongings on rafts and herding cattle through the water to the village of Nyamintanga in the border commune of Buganda, 35 km north of the Burundian capital Bujumbura, following an offensive by the Congolese rebel group, Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma). Eleven children drowned during the crossing, while a man was seriously injured by a hippopotamus.

""This influx was not really a surprise", UNHCR representative in Burundi, Stefano Severe, said. "Things have remained quite volatile in eastern DRC and there had been rumours recently that there would be more of the usual abuse of the civilian population by different groups."

The refugees told UNHCR that RCD-Goma had warned the inhabitants of three villages, Kiryama, Cimuka and Ntunda, in South Kivu, to leave their homes because it planned a large-scale operation against other rebel groups. The refugees said that 21 people were killed in the three villages, although the UNHCR said it was not clear who was responsible for the deaths.

UNHCR said it hoped to move all the families to a camp at Cishemeye, because Nyamitanga was too close to the border and was impossible to secure against rebel incursions. However, it said that the men would probably want to return to the DRC to check on their properties.

RCD-Goma, together with all other parties involved in the war in the DRC, signed a peace agreement on 2 April to end more than four years of fighting, and RCD-Goma secretary-general, Azarias Ruberwa Manywa, has been named as the movement's candidate for a vice-presidential post in a two-year national transitional government. However, violence has continued in a number of areas in the east of the country.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

[ENDS]

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