DRC urges refugees to return

2010-03-16 22:00

Brazzaville - A top aide to President Joseph Kabila on Tuesday urged some 115 000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to return home from the neighbouring Republic of Congo.

Louise Mayima Kasende, the deputy director of Kabila's cabinet, appealed to her compatriots in the north of the Congo to return to their homes in the DRC's Equateur Province, where ethnic violence broke out last year.

"These refugees have only to return because most of the zones that they abandoned have now been secured" by the army, Mayima Kasende said during a cross-border visit in a broadcast on the Republic of Congo's national radio.

She said that the refugees could again till their fields and make a living in the parts of Equateur Province where bloodshed broke out in October 2009, claiming 270 lives, according to Kinshasa's official figures.

Fishing and land

Violence between two local tribes disputing land rights and access to fish stocks sparked the exodus. The Enyele and Munzaya tribes have long been in dispute over farming and fishing rights, which led to heavy fighting.

The Kinshasa government sent in the army to quell the unrest, but local people also fled the troops.

The refugees are scattered in an estimated 92 sites close to the Oubangui river, which forms the border between the two Congos, in the Likouala region, an area that is very hard to access for humanitarian staff.

For several weeks, relief workers have been up against logistical problems and low water levels on the Oubangui, which have made it difficult to use the waterway.

On March 12, the UN World Food Programme announced an airlift of food supplies between the Congolese oil capital of Pointe-Noire, in the south, and Impfondo, the capital of Likouala, in the far north.

"To provide food supplies regularly in such a remote zone is an immense logistical challenge," said the WFP representative in the Republic of Congo, Alix Loriston, quoted in the statement.

- AFP