Fighting in progress close to refugee settlement

Ethnic clashes are continuing close to a refugee settlement in Ituri District, northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, preventing thousands of Sudanese refugees who fled the violence there last week from returning.

The Biringi refugee settlement, about 80 km west of Aru, was overrun early last week by rebels of the Congolese Patriotic Union/Popular Rally, who were fighting the Lendu people. The violence caused panic and drove more than 14,500 Sudanese refugees in Biringi, along with local people from surrounding areas, into the bush, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday.

As fighting escalated towards the end of last week, a further 2,500 Sudanese, together with the families of NGO employees working for UNHCR, fled from the fighting in Ayamba, on the outskirts of Biringi municipality.

Since then, some of the refugees had started trickling back to Biringi as the fighting had spread away from the refugee site to Kandoi, about 40 km west of the settlement, UNHCR said.

On Tuesday, a local NGO working in the Ayamba settlement, Diocese de Mahagi, was scheduled to travel from Ayamba to Biringi to assess the situation and gather information about possible casualties, UNHCR said. So far no casualties among either the refugee or local populations has been reported.

To date, UNHCR employees in Aru, on the DRC-Uganda border, have been unable to travel to the refugee site for security reasons. While fighting had stopped along the Aru-Biringi main road, a heavy military presence was reported there, rendering the roads unsafe, the UN agency said.