UNHCR reaches Angolan refugees in DRC

UNHCR contacted for the first time “newly arriving” refugees from Angola, the agency’s spokesman Kris Janowski told a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. The agency’s team had just completed a two-day mission to the remote border areas of the DRC. The team had departed from Kahemba under “heavy military escort” to three villages in southeastern Bandundu province, where they estimated at 1,000 the number of Angolans who have crossed to that vicinity in the past few weeks. “The estimate included information from an area that the mission was not allowed to visit by the accompanying soldiers, who cited possible encounters with UNITA rebels,” Janowski said.

According to UNHCR, refugees who have crossed to the DRC in the past week confirmed that thousands more displaced people have erected makeshift shelters in forests on the Angolan side of the border. The refugees named dozens of small villages in Angola’s border province of Lunda Norte that were abandoned by their population after clashes between UNITA and government forces at Camaxilo. “Some refugees UNHCR spoke with said they had crossed to the DRC after a month of seeking safety in the woods, and only after they were no longer able to find food,” Janowski said. “They reported that thousands of individuals continue to move out of relative safety in wooded areas at night to search for food.”