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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

ANGOLA-ZAMBIA: Landmine causes repatriation setback

JOHANNESBURG, 12 June 2003 (IRIN) - Angolan refugees about to return home from Zambia this week suffered a setback when an unexploded landmine was discovered on an Angolan road they expected to travel on.

"A landmine was dug up by one of the machines used for rehabilitating the road," the UN office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Resident Representative in Angola, Janvier Riematten, told IRIN on Thursday. "It did not explode and we are told by the government and by the armed forces that it is an old landmine," he said.

A UNHCR spokeswoman in Zambia said that 400 people at the camp in Meheba had packed their belongings for the journey to a transit centre in Cazombo, in Angola's Moxico province. They had sold what they would not need and were about to leave when the discovery was made.

They would have been the first wave of voluntary repatriations since last year's ceasefire improved conditions for returning, which was also seen as a "test run" for future voluntary repatriations to Angola.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," the spokeswoman said. "Everybody is very disappointed and our deputy resident representive has gone to tell them what happened."

Meanwhile, the families are being accommodated in a transit camp and provided with the food and facilities they will need during the delay, she said.

Last week the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that despite ongoing clearance efforts, landmines would continue to cause problems for years to come in Angola, especially for the large numbers of refugees and internally displaced people returning to areas that have not yet been cleared.

During Angola's 27-year civil war, about 440,000 refugees fled into Zambia's Western and North Western provinces, as well as to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Namibia. About 120,000 have since spontaneously returned to Angola, but the UNHCR is currently preparing to help many others go home.

Last month UNHCR began registering the first of about 90,000 refugees in Zambia, in preparation for their return.

Themes: (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs

[ENDS]

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