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About 20,000 people who fled fighting over the weekend in Uvira on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, have returned home, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday.
They began to flee from Uvira into western Burundi when the rebel group in control of the town, the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma), lost it to government-allied Mayi-Mayi forces on 13 October. When RCD-Goma forces recaptured the town on Saturday, thousands more fled to the border, but were not permitted to enter Burundi.
On Sunday afternoon, the head of RCD-Goma, Adolphe Onusumba, visited the fugitives and asked them to return home. By evening, all those on the border had returned home, apart from about 50 who chose to remain, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported. The remaining group was subsequently permitted to enter Burundi.
Meanwhile, the UNHCR had continued to register "a growing number" of refugees who managed to cross the border, in two temporary sites in Gatumba near the Burundi capital, Bujumbura; and Rugombo, in the northwestern province of Cibitoke, UNHCR said. By Sunday evening, the agency had registered close to 10,000 refugees at both sites. However, the site at Rugombo was too small to accommodate all the refugees being registered there, and another site was currently being identified, it added.
OCHA described the atmosphere in Uvira as "calm" on Monday, saying people were beginning to move around the town. Three deaths and eight serious injuries had been reported among the civilian population, OCHA reported.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
