Border tense as villagers return

The Zambian-Angolan border remained tense on Monday, but no new incursions by Angolan troops (FAA) were reported since a raid on villages at the end of last week left at least seven Zambians dead, a Zambian government official told IRIN. "The situation is tense but since Friday when fresh (Zambian) troops were deployed there hasn't been any new incursions," the official said. According to a BBC report on Tuesday, the Zambian authorities summoned the Angolan ambassador to express their concern over the raid into southwestern Zambia last Friday in which at least seven villagers were shot dead and some 80 people, mostly women and children, abducted. Some of those captured from the Shangombo area began to make their way home over the weekend, but Zambia's Information Minister Vernon Mwaanga told the BBC that 20 people were still unaccounted for. News reports said the Angolan troops crossed the border to hunt down UNITA rebels amid a continuing Angolan refugee influx into Zambia's Western province. "That doesn't make a lot of sense. They say they are coming to pursue UNITA, but UNITA is in Angola," the official said. "I think it's units deployed along the border who are doing this and not with the blessing of the high command." Cross-border raids by Angolan troops are not uncommon, and have often involved livestock theft. However, relations between the two countries have improved with the establishment of a joint security commission to investigate border incidents. According to UNHCR and the Zambian government, a screening system to weed out combatants from among the refugees is in place, and so far no UNITA fighters have been detected since the latest influx began in mid-October. Instead, the arrivals are mainly women and children, and mine victims fleeing an Angolan government offensive across the border, UNHCR spokesman Kelvin Shimo told IRIN. He added that fighting had also intensified further north in Angola's Moxico region, as witnessed by the arrival of 300 refugees into Zambia's neighbouring Northwest province in recent days. Meanwhile, the new arrivals into southwestern Zambia are being accommodated at a temporary site outside the remote Nangweshi refugee camp which has reached its capacity of more than 15,000. UNHCR is concerned that with the rains starting to fall, negotiations need to be finalised soon with the government for their transfer across the flood-prone Zambezi river to a new location around the town of Senenga. The proposed new site, 170 km from the border, was previously used to accommodate Namibian refugees and has the capacity to hold 20,000 to 30,000 people, the Zambian government official said. However, he pointed out that the government had run into problems in securing land from the local community in the area. "It's a big, big problem to get the land. The chiefs are asking what more do the refugees bring other than insecurity? It calls for something to be done by the international community. Development, that's the only way," he told IRIN.