Ogata marks Africa Refugee Day

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata marked Africa Refugee Day on Tuesday in a settlement for Sudanese refugees in Mungula, near Adjumani, in northern Uganda. Africa Refugee Day is observed annually to mark the anniversary of the adoption by the OAU of the African Refugee Convention, which is the cornerstone of refugee protection on the continent. Ogata and Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi opened a new wing of a secondary school, one of the basic community services the UNHCR is supporting in refugee resettlement areas, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said in a press briefing that day. Some 11,500 Sudanese refugees, who fled southern Sudan in 1994, live at the Mungula site one of 55 where the Ugandan government and UNHCR are cooperating on a self-reliance project aimed at reducing refugees’ dependence on continued international assistance, Janowski said. Ogata had on Monday thanked Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni for the country’s generosity towards refugees and discussed the DRC conflict and strained Rwandan-Ugandan relations, he added. Uganda hosts some 202,000 refugees, over 183,000 of them from Sudan.Also on Monday, the High Commissioner had visited President Pierre Buyoya in Burundi, where discussion focused on the prospects for the return of some 350,000 refugees from Tanzania, as the prospects of a peace deal at the Arusha peace talks improved. Ogata told Buyoya “there would have to be tangible improvements in the security situation before UNHCR could promote repatriation to Burundi,” Janowski stated. During her stops in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, Ogata urged all Africans to show more tolerance towards refugees in their territories and drew attention to her agency’s public awareness campaign called ‘Roll-Back Xenophobia’.