Six years on, Congolese refugees who fled LRA return home from CAR

News Stories, 3 August 2015

© UNHCR/A Kitidi
Young Congolese refugees in Zemio camp in Central African Republic.

BANGUI, Aug 3 (UNHCR) More than 600 Congolese refugees who fled into Central African Republic (CAR) six years ago to escape attacks from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) returned to their country on Monday (August 3) in an airlift organized by the UN refugee agency.

UNHCR said a first group of 39 Congolese refugees boarded a Dash-8 aircraft in Zemio, south-east CAR and flew to Ango in a remote area of Orientale province in northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the first stage of a planned three-week repatriation exercise.

"Over the next three weeks, UNHCR plans to repatriate a total of 628 refugees on 12 chartered flights, including the one on Monday. The numbers could change," the agency said in a press release.

UNHCR said that all of the returnees had said they wished to leave UNHCR-run Zemio and return to their homes in the Ango area because of concerns about the volatile security situation now prevailing in CAR.

UNHCR has worked with the governments of CAR and DRC to facilitate the voluntary repatriation to Ango. The LRA still has a presence in the area, but the governments believe the situation is stable enough to allow for return.

"The refugees were fully informed about the security situation in return areas before they made a final decision to go back," the press release noted.

Between 2008 and 2009, around 5,000 Congolese fled LRA attacks and atrocities in the Ango and Obo border areas into CAR. The feared Ugandan rebel group robbed villagers, looted property, torched homes, kidnapped people, raped women and girls and used the young as child soldiers and sex slaves.

Most found shelter in Zemio, a camp run by UNHCR and now hosting 3,499 refugees, including those now going home in the airlift programme. Since the latest wave of instability began rocking CAR in 2012, many Congolese refugees have made their way home from Zemio and other parts of CAR.

UNHCR, meanwhile, is looking for durable solutions for those opting not to return to the DRC. Funding shortages could affect the level of aid at Zemio, which is in a volatile area and difficult to access.

The lack of roads makes overland repatriation impossible and the airstrip at Ango has been rehabilitated and extended.

On arrival, each returnee will be given US$60 to cover the cost of travel to their villages along dirt tracks on motorbikes, bicycles or foot. UNHCR is also providing a repatriation grant of US$150 per adult and US$100 per child. The World Food Programme will give out cash vouchers for food.

The refugees will be returning to an area where the weakened LRA has launched sporadic attacks in past months. The last reported incident was in late July. But the government in Kinshasa has reviewed the security situation and given the green light for the return operation.

The LRA appeared in Uganda in 1986, established its first base in Sudan in 1993, and spread to the DRC in 2005, before moving further north into CAR in 2009.

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UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu

As a massive food distribution gets underway in six UNHCR-run camps for tens of thousands of internally displaced Congolese in North Kivu, the UN refugee agency continues to hand out desperately needed shelter and household items.

A four-truck UNHCR convoy carrying 33 tonnes of various aid items, including plastic sheeting, blankets, kitchen sets and jerry cans crossed Wednesday from Rwanda into Goma, the capital of the conflict-hit province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The aid, from regional emergency stockpiles in Tanzania, was scheduled for immediate distribution. The supplies arrived in Goma as the World Food Programme (WFP), with assistance from UNHCR, began distributing food to some 135,000 displaced people in the six camps run by the refugee agency near Goma.

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Posted on 6 November 2008

UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu

UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu

Since 2006, renewed conflict and general insecurity in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's North Kivu province has forced some 400,000 people to flee their homes – the country's worst displacement crisis since the formal end of the civil war in 2003. In total, there are now some 800,000 people displaced in the province, including those uprooted by previous conflicts.

Hope for the future was raised in January 2008 when the DRC government and rival armed factions signed a peace accord. But the situation remains tense in North Kivu and tens of thousands of people still need help. UNHCR has opened sites for internally displaced people (IDPs) and distributed assistance such as blankets, plastic sheets, soap, jerry cans, firewood and other items to the four camps in the region. Relief items have also been delivered to some of the makeshift sites that have sprung up.

UNHCR staff have been engaged in protection monitoring to identify human rights abuses and other problems faced by IDPs and other populations at risk across North Kivu.

UNHCR's ninemillion campaign aims to provide a healthy and safe learning environment for nine million refugee children by 2010.

Posted on 28 May 2008

UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu

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Fighting rages on in various parts of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with seemingly no end in sight for hundreds of thousands of Congolese forced to flee violence and instability over the past two years. The ebb and flow of conflict has left many people constantly on the move, while many families have been separated. At least 1 million people are displaced in North Kivu, the hardest hit province. After years of conflict, more than 1,000 people still die every day - mostly of hunger and treatable diseases. In some areas, two out of three women have been raped. Abductions persist and children are forcefully recruited to fight. Outbreaks of cholera and other diseases have increased as the situation deteriorates and humanitarian agencies struggle to respond to the needs of the displaced.

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Displaced in North Kivu: A Life on the Run

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