Luanda, Kinshasa, UN agency agree to repatriate Angolan refugees

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the governments of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have agreed on a plan to repatriate at least 163,000 Angolan refugees from the DRC beginning May, the UN agency reported on Monday. The agreement was reached at a two-day meeting in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, which ended on Saturday; and followed a similar tripartite meeting held two weeks ago in the Zambian capital, Lusaka. "The Lusaka meeting finalised plans for the return of more than 150,000 Angolan refugees in Zambia - nearly one-third of the 450,000 Angolan refugees expected to return home from neighbouring countries, including the DRC," UNHCR reported. It said that the Kinshasa meeting was the first session of the technical working group, which the Tripartite Commission on the repatriation of Angolan refugees established on 9 December 2002. The working group has designated border crossings to be used by convoys leaving refugee camps in southern DRC for Angolan provinces of Moxico, Uige and Zaïre. "The working group also agreed on travel documents for returnees and proposed immigration formalities that could be used at entry points into Angola," UNHCR reported. It said it had already opened seven offices in northern Angola to which many of the refugees were expected to return. UNHCR reported that a recent survey in camps for Angolan refugees in the DRC (163,000), Zambia (200,000), Namibia (24,500) and the Republic of Congo (16,000) showed that 80 percent of the Angolan refugee population in these countries wanted to return home. Of these, some 66 percent wanted to go home in 2003, it said.