Repatriation of Congo DR refugees resumes

The Zambian government in conjunction with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on May 9 recommenced the voluntary repatriation of Congolese refugees living in Zambia.

The resumption May 9 marks the official launch of the Congolese voluntary repatriation programme for 2009 from Zambia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A total of 321 Congolese refugees departed from Mwange refugee camp by road on a 280-kilometre journey to Mpulungu Harbour in Zambia’s Northern Province. The refugees will leave Mpulungu Harbour by ship to Moba in the DRC on the evening May 9.

The Congolese refugees are 113 from Kala and 208 from Mwange Refugee Camps in the Kawambwa and Mporokoso districts, located in the Luapula and Northern provinces, respectively. The refugees from Kala left the camp on May 8, and were transported to Mwange where they spent a night. This morning they joined their colleagues from Mwange and travelled by road to Mpulungu for their onward return by boat to DRC.

The Voluntary Repatriation of Congolese Refugees in Zambia follows the fifth tripartite commission meeting held on 21 and 22 April in Lusaka and by high-level delegations comprising senior government officials, some diplomats representing the donor community, UNHCR and IOM which met refugees at the Kala camp to encourage them to consider voluntary repatriation now that conditions in the DRC were conducive for return.

Zambia hosts some 45,000 Congolese refugees, with 28,591 of them in the camps of Mwange and Kala in the far north of the country and in the Meheba and Mayukwayukwa settlements in the West and North-West, while the rest are settled among Zambians, including a few living in urban areas.

Returnees will spend the first few days back in DRC in a reception centre where they will receive mine awareness training, HIV/AIDS information and necessary medical assistance before they leave the centre for their areas of return. They will also be provided with a supply of food rations, a construction kit to assist in building their homes, blankets, soap, kitchen items, bicycles and buckets. Later in the year, they will receive seeds and farming tools in their home communities to support them in becoming self-sufficient.