11/11/2005
New UN Repatriation Route Opens For 155,000 Congolese Refugees
In Tanzania
Some 155,000 Congolese who fled fighting over the past decade
to camps in Tanzania will now have the opportunity to go home
after the United Nations refugee agency officially launched a
new repatriation operation by boat this week across Lake Tanganyika.
“
Last year, refugees already started returning home on their own
in unsafe boats – some 15,000 went home on their own – so
we felt it prudent to help them by organizing proper transportation,” UN
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond
told a news briefing in Geneva
The organized repatriation was made possible by the signing of
a Tripartite Agreement in September between UNHCR and the governments
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Tanzania under
which the agency has chartered the MV Mwongozo to ferry the
refugees across the lake.
The
Mwongozo, which means “leading
the way” in
Kiswahili, covers in just six hours a crossing that used to
take 15 hours
in the small boats the refugees used to charter themselves.
The operation was officially launched in Kigoma port with
a boatload of 484 Congolese after four trial convoys beginning
last month
took more than 1,500 refugees home from camps in north-western
Tanzania.
On arrival in Baraka in DRC at a port reconstructed by UNHCR,
the returnees were met by agency teams, given a hot meal
and registered at the Baraka transit centre, where they stayed
overnight
before being helped back to their villages of origin.
During their stay at the transit centre, the refugees underwent
training in mine and HIV/AIDS awareness. Upon arrival in
their villages, they will receive a repatriation package
including
mattresses and kitchen sets, as well as farming implements
and building tools.
The repatriations will continue with a maximum of 500 refugees
sailing every Wednesday. UNHCR would like to increase the
number of movements to two a week, but faces some logistical
problems
as well as a shortage of funds for the operation.
