UNHCR head arrives in Kinshasa at start of tour

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers arrived on Wednesday in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), kicking off a tour to review his UNHCR's operations and various peace initiatives that could pave the way for the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees in several countries of the Great Lakes region, the UN agency reported. Lubbers was expected to proceed to the Angolan capital, Luanda, on Thursday - the second leg of his four-nation tour which also includes Tanzania and Burundi. However, UNHCR said he was considering cutting short his trip due to Tuesday’s bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq. On Wednesday, the first of his two-day visit to the DRC, Lubbers held separate meetings with Foreign Affairs Minister Antoine Ghonda Mangalibi, Interior Minister Theophile Mbemba Fundu, and Human Rights Minister Madeleine Kalala. He was expected to meet with President Joseph Kabila on Thursday. During these meetings, UNHCR said that Lubbers planned to appeal for improved access to refugees by humanitarian workers, particularly in eastern DRC, and better human rights as a prerequisite for refugee return. En route to Kinshasa, Lubbers UNHCR-chartered aircraft made a brief refuelling stop in the eastern DRC town of Goma, where he met with the governor of North Kivu Province, Eugene Serufuli. According to UNHCR, Serufuli expressed concerns about continuing insecurity in the province, saying that conditions were not yet conducive for the return of thousands of Congolese refugees in neighbouring countries. He added that Rwandan refugees in his region were continuing to return home, emerging from forest areas to gather at designated meeting points from where they are transported back to Rwanda. UNHCR said that so far this year, at least 8,800 Rwandan refugees had been repatriated from the Kivu region, and that since 2000, more than 58,000 Rwandan refugees had returned home from the DRC. Speaking to reporters in Goma about UNHCR's immediate plans for the return of Congolese refugees, Lubbers said the agency would, in the coming weeks, assist the return of more than 1,300 Congolese from Camp Molangue in the Central African Republic. He said that a number of Congolese refugees had also begun to return home on their own from neighbouring Zambia to Katanga Province of southern DRC. For the longer term, Lubbers said his agency was planning a voluntary repatriation of more than 300,000 Congolese refugees mainly in Tanzania, Zambia and the Republic of Congo. He credited UNHCR's achievements so far to positive political developments in the DRC.