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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: CAR: UN agency begins repatriation of Congolese refugees
BANGUI, 17 December 2003 (IRIN) - The first 301 of thousands of Congolese refugees in the Central African Republic (CAR) returned home on Tuesday under a repatriation programme facilitated by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"We want the returnees to go directly to their home regions," Jean Kitambala, the director for civil protection and refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Interior Ministry told IRIN. He was in the CAR capital, Bangui, to accompany the returnees.
A ceremony marking the beginning of the repatriation process took place at the Bangui Mpoko airport, presided over by CAR Interior Minister Marcel Malonga. Most returnees wore T-shirts written on them "long live Kabila", in reference to Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
"I was in Kisangani [northeastern DRC] selling fish when fighting forced me to flee and I arrived here in 1999," Honorine Balanga, a 50-year-old mother of two told IRIN before she boarded a plane for Kinshasa, the DRC capital. "I am going to resume my fish-selling business," she added.
Those who left on Tuesday were 77 families comprising 154 children, 78 women and 69 men. They had been in Bangui for three months, awaiting their repatriation, which was delayed because the Congolese government had to ascertain the areas of origin of the returnees to avoid having them turn into internally displaced people in the capital.
Kitambala said that about 50 cases of people coming from regions other than Kinshasa had been detected. He said those among the 7,000 Congolese refugees in the CAR who were willing to return home would be repatriated after the signing of a tripartite repatriation agreement among the governments of the CAR, the DRC and the UNHCR. Consultations were reported to be underway on this issue but no date had been fixed for the signing of the agreement.
Gabriel Guerebendo, 70, from Kotakoli in the northwestern province of Equateur in the DRC was among the returnees. He has 12 children and was a former director of the Libenge airport in Equateur before he fled to the CAR.
Guerebendo arrived in the southern CAR town of Mongoumba, 189 km south of Bangui, in 1999 when the then rebels of the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) attacked and captured the town of Libenge.
"I am going to Kinshasa because the directorate of civil aviation is there," he told IRIN. He added that he was ready to take up a new position anywhere in the country.
Guerebendo was head of a committee of the returnees. He said that before leaving the Red Cross compound in Bangui where they had been gathered, the UNHCR had given each adult returnee 55,000 francs CFA (US $100) and each child some 28,000 francs CFA ($50).
Gbodo Mondo, 28, who had just obtained his high school certificate in languages, said he had declined to enrol in the Bangui University "because I want to go and study in Kinshasa". He was visiting relatives in Equateur when war broke out in the province in 1999, forcing him to flee to the CAR.
Tuesday's returnees were the first batch of Congolese refugees in the CAR to be repatriated. Their repatriation took place one day after the UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner, Kamel Morjane, visited the country and announced that the agency would embark on massive repatriation operations in 2004.
Before his departure from the CAR, Morjane, who is currently touring Chad, told a news conference that he had received assurances from CAR leader Francois Bozize that the River Oubangui, which forms the CAR-DRC border, would be reopened specially for the UN agency to enable it to repatriate Congolese refugees returning to Equateur Province, which is across the Oubangui.
During a visit to Camp Molangue, 120 km south of Bangui, where a total of 2,960 Congolese refugees have been living since February 2001, Morjane told the refugees willing to go home to patient to allow the UNHCR finalise repatriation arrangement with the two governments.
Themes: (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs
[ENDS]
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