Country hosting 20,000 Congolese refugees from Ituri, UNHCR says

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has put the number of refugees who have fled into Uganda to escape fighting in the Ituri District of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at between 15,000 and 20,000, the UN agency reported on Monday. Earlier reports had estimated the number of refugees entering Uganda through the border districts of Nebbi and Bundibugyo at 60,000 between them. "The exact number is still hard to determine but the numbers we were hearing in the press are far higher than what we witnessed in both [crossing points]," Bushra Malik, UNHCR spokeswoman in Uganda, told IRIN. She said Nebbi had fewer than 9,000 refugees and Bundibugyo 7,000 or 8,000; according to a fact-finding team, sent to both places by the UNHCR, the UN World Food Progamme and the Ugandan government. However, aid workers said that they and the fact-finding team had seen only some of the arrivals; others had crossed and moved inland well before the team arrived. The conditions in some of the sites that the refugees have settled are grim. Many are camped in flooded fishing villages on the southern shores of Lake Albert, on the border with the DRC and Uganda. Some have erected basic makeshift shelters, others sleep outside. The UNHCR reported that food was scarce and sanitary poor, with reports of cholera in some villages. Malik said that at present, the UNHCR could not help the refugees because they had not yet been moved into refugee camps. "The position of our office is that these people should move to Imvebi camp, further from the border, which is the closest and currently houses around 15,000 Sudanese refugees," she told IRIN. "Only when they agree to be moved to a designated area can we assist them." More refugees are expected on Monday as the Ugandan army withdraws its remaining four battalions of ground troops through the Congolese border town of Mahagi, into Nebbi District. Many of the refugees have been walking for three days in the company of the Ugandan soldiers for their own protection.