UGANDA-DRC: Congolese refugees moved to permanent camp

Photo: IRIN

Congolese refugees wade through a swamp to enter Uganda

KAMPALA, 20 December 2006 (IRIN) - At least 800 Congolese who fled recent fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been moved from the DRC-Uganda border to a camp further inland in southwestern Uganda, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has said.

In a statement, the agency said on Tuesday that 300 of the refugees left Nyakabanda transit site in Kisoso, also in the southwest of Uganda, for the Nakivale Refugee Settlement camp in Isingiro District, 330 km away.

"This brings to 886 the total number of Congolese refugees transferred to Nakivale since Sunday," Roberta Russo, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Kampala, said.

She said Nakivale was also home to 21,000 refugees mainly from Rwanda, Somalia, the DRC and Burundi.

The refugees moved to Nakivale are part of a group of about 12,000 people who fled on 5 December to southwestern Uganda to escape fighting between Congolese government forces and rebels led by a renegade general, Laurent Nkunda. The fighting occurred 100 km north of Goma in North Kivu Province. Some of these refugees are reported to have returned home as soon as calm returned to their villages.

On Saturday, fresh fighting between the Congolese army and rebels allied to Nkunda in North Kivu sent a new wave of at least 3,000 refugees into Kisoro district. They fled 67 villages along the border between DRC, Rwanda and Uganda. However, UNHCR officials in Kisoro said by Tuesday, many of those who had fled Saturday's fighting had returned home.

Upon arrival at Nakivale, the agency said, the refugees receive a hot meal at a transit centre where they spend the night. They would then be registered before undergoing medical screening. Each family would be allocated a plot of land (50 x 100m) for residential and cultivation purposes by the Ugandan government.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) will issue food rations while UNHCR would give each family a package of basic household supplies, comprising plastic sheeting, blankets, jerry cans, kitchen utensils and farming implements.

"We are in the process of placing 24 unaccompanied children in foster families, which have already have been identified," Svante Yngrot, a UNHCR security officer on mission to Nakivale, said. "The children do not look too anxious as we have reassured them that that they will receive assistance and a family is going to take care of them."

The UNHCR has provided medicine for an additional 2,500 people at health points in Nakivale, 3,500 non-food packages and an ambulance for GTZ, the NGO working with UNHCR at the settlement camp. The UN Children's Fund is due to send 10 mobile toilets and four 10,000-litre water tanks to Nakivale.

Uganda is already hosting at least 24,000 registered Congolese refugees mainly in Hoima, Kenjojo, Masindi and Isingiro districts, according to UNHCR.

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