Angolan refugees to be repatriated

More than 800 Angolan refugees in the Republic of Congo (ROC) are to be sent to the enclave of Cabinda in northern Angola, Kris Janowski UNHCR spokesman said at a press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on Tuesday. Cabinda is an oil-rich piece of Angolan territory separated from the rest of the country by a strip of Congolese territory. Janowski said that UNHCR saw the enclave as "the only safe place in Angola". "Returnees will make the 120 km trip by truck from Pointe-Noire to Cacongo, 46 km north of Cabinda City, where Angola's ministry of social integration has allocated a site for a transit centre. The 182 families will stay a maximum of five nights before being collected by relatives or transported back to their home areas in and around Cacongo and Cabinda city," Janowski said. He said Cabinda's provincial authorities had equipped the transit site with tents, water, electricity and a provisional health post with two nurses and a doctor. "Officials from the ministry of justice will carry out civil registration of the returnees, who will also be assisted later in obtaining ID cards. The government is providing rice, beans and vegetable oil, while UNHCR is sending family kits which include plastic sheeting, pots and pans and buckets," he added. Janowski said each returnee would be given a large enough plot of land to build a three-bedroomed house and half a hectare of arable land. They will also receive construction material and a cash allocation of US $65 per person. "Next week's returnees have been living in Pointe Noire, Congo-Brazzaville, since 1993. But many more have been in both Congos for much longer, having fled Cabinda in the seventies when separatist troops sparked trouble in the oil-rich enclave. There are still 13,000 Angolan refugees from Cabinda in Pointe-Noire," Janowski told journalists.