Congo refugees riot in Zambian camp

A food riot on Friday by hundreds of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at a camp in northern Zambia left one person dead, UNHCR told IRIN on Monday. “There was a serious disturbance at Kala camp and in the process of restoring order a refugee was killed,” George Okoth-Obbo, UNHCR Acting Country Representative in Zambia, said. Some 28 other people were injured during the clashes between the refugees and Zambian police officers at the camp, 15 refugees have been arrested and charged with riotous behaviour. Although food rations to the camp’s thousands of residents had recently been reduced by half due to lack of donor funds, this, according to Okoth-Obbo, was not the reason for the disturbances. “The problem was that Kala refugees were getting rations every two weeks. Many were then travelling to another camp nearby, registering there, and collecting another two-week ration. To stop this, we changed the feeding days at the two camps to make them coincide.” Okoth-Obbo added that in order to bring the two camps into line, Kala refugees were given a 7-day ration and that this had sparked the riot. Police spokesman Lemmy Kajoba said police were forced to fire teargas to disperse the rioters. Kajoba said the rioting refugees damaged three police vehicles, adding that the 15 arrested were expected to appear in court soon. “We had to abandon food distribution at Kala on Thursday after refugees started looting, by Friday between 500 and 1,000 of them set up a road block just outside the camp, police finally broke it up, during this clash a refugee was killed,” Okoth-Obbo added. People fleeing wars in neighbouring DRC and Angola have poured into Zambia, which now hosts more than 250,000 refugees, the largest refugee population in southern Africa. In December, Ilunga Ngandu, UNHCR regional director, admitted that funding for refugees was inadequate, warning that Zambia was a “time bomb”. Early this year, a visiting UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said it was a “very big burden” for impoverished Zambia to host so many refugees. “Zambia needs urgent international support,” he said. Okoth-Obbo told IRIN that order had been restored at Kala over the weekend, but that breaks in the food pipeline fuelled tension in Zambian refugee camps.