Bangui, Kigali revive commission on refugee repatriation

The governments of the Central African Republic (CAR) and Rwanda have resolved to revive a tripartite they signed with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for the repatriation of Rwandan refugees, state-owned Radio Centrafrique reported on Wednesday. The decision was taken in Geneva, Switzerland, where the UNHCR Executive Committee met from 29 September to 4 October, the radio reported. The CAR minister in charge of territorial administration, Marcel Malonga, and the head of the government’s body in charge of refugees, Victor Bead, attended the meeting. The UNHCR representative in the CAR and Chad, Emile Segbor, told IRIN on Wednesday that Kigali, Bangui and the UNHCR signed the agreement setting up the commission in 2001. He said there were about 300 refugees in the CAR. The first Rwandan refugees arrived in the CAR in July 1994, at the end of a three-month genocide that claimed at least 800,000 lives. Others arrived mid-1997 when they fled fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.