POWs return home

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Regional Delegation for Southern Africa based in Harare, said in a statement on Monday that 177 former prisoners of war (POWs) of Rwandan, Zimbabwean and Namibian nationality returned home at the weekend. "On 16 June 2000, an ICRC aircraft was used to bring 35 Zimbabweans and 11 Namibian former POWs from Kigali in Rwanda, to the Congolese capital Kinshasa before returning to Kigali with 88 Rwanda ex-POWs on board," the ICRC said. "On 17 June another ICRC plane took the 35 Zimbabweans from Kinshasa to Harare. The 11 Namibian ex-POWs were repatriated from Kinshasa to Windhoek by the Namibian authorities using their own aircraft," the statement added. "An additional 43 Rwandan ex-POWs were transported by an ICRC plane from Harare to Kigali. ICRC delegates were aboard all ICRC flights." The ICRC said that the repatriation followed agreements between the authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Namibia and the ICRC. It said that ICRC acted at the request of the parties in its capacity as a "neutral intermediary" and carried out the operation in accordance with its mandate. The ICRC said that all POWs had been registered and regularly visited by the ICRC during their period of captivity. "The ICRC will continue to make its services available to all parties to the conflict in order to promote compliance with he provisions of international humanitarian law, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols of 1977," the ICRC noted.