Welcome returnees, minister urges public

A government minister in the Central African Republic (CAR) has called on the public to welcome those who were returning home by offering shelter and food, government-controlled Radio Centrafrique reported on Wednesday. It quoted the minister for social affairs, Lea Koasooum Doumta, as saying that 2,500 refugees who had been living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were ready to return. The first of them were expected on Monday, she said. Doumta, who also chairs a joint government-UN-NGO committee formed on 7 May to coordinate the return of the refugees, said the groundwork had been laid for the return of the 2,500 refugees who have been living in Zongo in the DRC, a town situated across River Oubangui from Bangui, the CAR capital. Upon its formation the committee, known as the Comite National d'Accueil et de Reinsertion des Rapatries, was divided into four sub-committees to handle refugee registration, security and judicial situation, human rights, community services and logistics. Doumta recalled that the UN World Food Programme was unable to provide food aid as its warehouses had been looted following the 15 March coup by former army chief of staff Francois Bozize. The expected return of the refugees follows the return of about 800 former soldiers. The minister of communications, who is also the joint committee's deputy chairman, Parfait Mbaye, told IRIN on 21 May that the committee was examining the former soldiers' cases for their possible reinstatement into the army. Initially, there were some 20,000 CAR refugees in northern DRC, Doumta said, but most had returned home on their own. The refugees, mostly from the Yakoma group of former President Andre Kolingba, fled the country in June 2001 after a coup attempt by Kolingba, against the president at the time, Ange-Felix Patasse. Many Yakomas were killed after the coup attempt. Some had their homes destroyed. Since taking power, Bozize has made efforts to reconcile the CAR people. These efforts include the formation of a government of national unity, the setting up of the National Transitional Council and an amnesty for the plotters of the 28 May 2001 coup attempt.