Refugees ready to come home

Justino Paquete, a former agricultural engineer, was confident that he would be able to find work once he got home to Angola. Bespectacled and dressed in a suit, he stood out among the Angolan refugees in the sprawling, dusty Meheba camp, all waiting their turn to get onto the buses that would take them across the border. Paquete, 30, had left Angola in 2001. With his skills, he felt he had a contribution to make to "my country" as it recovered from three decades of civil war. Paquete was at the transit centre to see off his 18-year-old sister, Juliette Antonio, and her two children. It would be his turn the following week. His parents and two brothers had left last year and were now back in Luena, the capital of eastern Moxico province. Juliette planned to open a business - "I will sell tomatoes and other vegetables," she said. Family members had sent her positive feedback about opportunities in Angola. But not all the returnees IRIN spoke to were as optimistic. "John Brown", 42, a former UNITA rebel soldier who fought against the MPLA government in Moxico for two decades, was apprehensive about going back: "The MPLA might kill me." He was interrupted by a relative, Costa Kativa, 34, also a former UNITA soldier who had operated in Moxico in the 1990s. "The MPLA is okay now - I do not think they will harm us," Kativa said. Although concerned about returning, "Brown" had nothing to hold him in Zambia. He had been living in the Ukwimi refugee camp in eastern Zambia for the past four years, without any of his immediate family. His wife had died during the war, which ended in 2002, after government forces killed UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi. Since his arrival in Zambia, "Brown" had received no word from his surviving family members. "I do not know if they are still living or dead," he said in fluent English. "I want to find out about my land, our house, my brothers, sisters - I want to find them now." "Brown" had made his way to Zambia on foot - a journey that had taken him five days through the forests of the northeastern region. On his arrival he was moved to Ukwimi, set up that year for fleeing UNITA soldiers, well away from the border. Refugee families are provided with rations by the World Food Programme during their first two years in Zambia. "Thereafter they have to fend for themselves," said Kelvin Shimo, spokesman for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. In all the camps - Ukwimi, Mayukwayukwa, Nangweshi, Kala and Meheba - the refugees were given land to cultivate maize, rice or vegetables, which they sold in the settlements' small markets. For many, like Michael Makuya, who has been living in Meheba since it was established in 1971, Zambia has become a second home. He arrived in 1968 as a five-year-old toddler with his parents, six brothers and two sisters. "My father was a farmer - they tell me we fled when there was war." He met his wife in the camp and became the father of four children. Until recently Makuya ran a grocery shop in Meheba. "I have sold it now, because I now want to go home - that [Angola] is where I belong." He had saved money and planned to open a similar shop when he got back. Despite the anticipated difficulties in a country he does not remember, "it will be a new beginning for me and my family - everything will be new". Two of his siblings had left for Angola last year; he had heard from them and was eager to join them. "All of us Angolans, whether we have seen home or not, want to go back - who wants to live in a camp for always? But the UNHCR is slow in sending us. Last year they were sending a thousand people at a time - now it is 300 to 400," Makuya complained. UNHCR's Shimo countered that few people had stepped forward for repatriation since the refugee agency opened the route to Luena. "But we have increased the number of convoys going to Angola from once a week to two. As from next week, we will have daily airlifts to Angola - to wherever we can fly - Lumbala N'guimbo [in Moxico province], Luanda [the capital] and Huambo [in the central province of Huambo]," he said. More than 200,000 Angolans sought refuge in Zambia during the civil war. According to the Angolan government, 70,000 have returned home under their own steam since the 2002 ceasefire agreement. UNHCR began its voluntary repatriation programme last year, and by the end of 2004 hopes to have helped around 53,000 Angolans to return. Last week six buses left Maheba for Caianda, 160 km into Angola. Four years ago the journey through the thick forest between the border and the Angolan town had taken "Brown" five days to complete: this time it lasted only six hours. As he got off the bus in the reception centre at Caianda, he turned to cast one last look at the forest that lay behind him, then moved on towards shelter to rest before the last leg of his trip home to Luena.