Refugee agency repatriates 359 nationals

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has repatriated 359 nationals of the Republic of Congo (ROC) from a province in the southwest of neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), officials said. "We have not had any problem with this operation and we would like to think that nothing is going to hold up the process," Anne Marie Méssian, the agency's protection officer in Brazzaville, said. UNHCR officials said the refugees who arrived in the ROC capital, Brazzaville, on Friday had been living in Bas-Congo Province for the last four years and had now fled that location because of fighting between Kinshasa government troops and militias. About 100 of the returnees were taken to the coastal town of Pointe-Noire and others to various destinations in the country. The director of the National Refugee Aid Committee, Jean Christophe Akondjo, assured the returnees of their safety in returning home. He was alluding to an incident in May 1999 when some 350 people disappeared on a section of the Brazzaville riverbank called the Beach. UNHCR says that 621 ROC nationals have been repatriated since April. The agency estimates there are still another 1,182 ROC refugees in the DRC.