Sudanese flee DRC camps

Recent insecurity in northeast DRC has led Sudanese refugees to cross into Uganda, UNHCR told IRIN on Thursday. A UNHCR spokesperson in Kampala said 550 Sudanese refugees from the Biringi, Aba and Dungu camps in the DRC had recently been registered by UNHCR at Arua in northwest Uganda. The refugees said they had left the DRC among other reasons because of deteriorating relations with local Congolese communities as a result of looting by soldiers of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). An SPLA spokesman, Samson Kwaje, disputed the report. "We do not have forces in the DRC," he told IRIN. Kwaje said the Sudanese refugees "started moving out of DRC last year when the war started and security crumbled." He attributed the looting to local Mayi-Mayi militia.