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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
DRC-CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Former soldiers return after two years in exile
BANGUI, 1 August 2003 (IRIN) - Former soldiers who had been living in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since October 2001 returned on Friday to Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), where the minister of social affairs, Lea Koyassoum Doumta, received them.
Chanting "Glory to the Lord, we are resurrected", the 274 former soldiers, 18 women and 20 children reached Bangui with the aid of the UN peace keeping mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, whose deputy-commander, Gen Roberto Martinelli, accompanied the returnees.
During the welcoming ceremony, Martinelli said that MONUC had separated the soldiers from civilians in October 2001, when the latter were taken to Mole, 35 km from the CAR border, and the former were taken to Bokilio, 150 km from the CAR border.
The representative of the returnees, former army Capt August Sillo, 44, and father of 12 children who all remained in Bangui, told IRIN on his arrival that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had assisted the military refugees for the first year of their exile.
"Our relatives in Bangui used to send some food and a little money," Sillo said. He added that many others had engaged in farming.
Mostly from the Yakoma ethnic group of former President Andre Kolingba, the former soldiers fled the CAR in June 2001, after Kolingba led a failed coup against then President Ange-Felix Patasse.
Patasse was ousted on 15 March by former army chief of staff, Francois Bozize. In his effort to reconcile the CAR people, Bozize proclaimed on 23 April a general amnesty for all convicts of the May 2001 coup attempt. 800 people were sentenced, 600 of them in absentia, for their alleged role in the failed putsch.
Soon after the amnesty, UNHCR repatriated about 2,000 civilian refugees from Mole, and is currently repatriating another 2,000 who sought refuge in the Republic of Congo.
"All the military in Bokilio were among the convicts in absentia," Sillo said.
He added that although initially some 1,000 soldiers were in Bokilio, most of them returned spontaneously to Bangui soon after Bozize's victory. Many former soldiers were also reported to have joined Bozize's troops in his bid to overthrow Patasse. Sillo added that women came to the camp later to rejoin their husbands, and refused to return to Bangui.
Kpongoma, a 31 year-old mother of four, joined her husband in Bokilio in December 2002 and started farming. "I now have rations for just two days," she told IRIN on Friday.
She said her family would stay at her parents' house for a while, as her own home was among those destroyed following the failed May 2001 coup on suspicion of her husband's role as a coup plotter or accomplice.
The return of the former soldiers from Bokilio comes days after the government integrated 352 others into the army. In May, the government had established a commission to oversee the repatriation and reinsertion of returnees.
"I am eager to wear my uniform again," Sillo said.
The African Union has provided $50,000 to support government efforts to help the returnees.
Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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