Osire camp calm after disturbance

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is preparing to repatriate about 200 Angolans from the Osire refugee camp in Namibia.

The repatriation process has been going on for some months, UNHCR spokesman Hesdy Radhling told IRIN, and 3,480 refugees have been returned to Angola from the camp so far this year.

In July, when UNHCR issued ration cards, it registered over 15,000 refugees in Osire camp.

The Osire camp was the scene of unrest on Friday last week, after a dispute over ration cards erupted, but UNHCR said the situation in the camp had returned to normal. The disturbance was sparked when the agency wanted to verify ration cards, as some refugees may have been in possession of ration cards issued to persons who had already been repatriated.

"It does happen, especially now - with the repatriation we find refugees in the camp with one or more ration card. Of course, you have to account for that. When they present themselves it has to be verified - at least 248 ration cards needed to be verified. After verification it appeared that the majority of them were indeed genuine. So we said, 'Go and collect your food,' but about 24 cards were found to be dubious", Radhling explained.

"We could not find [the 24 ration cards] in the database," he added.

The refugees concerned would not allow UNHCR to keep the "dubious" ration cards to do a proper verification, which led to the disturbance at the camp.

"A few students were agitating, and then started throwing stones. At that moment my colleague, of course, felt threatened and called in the police for protection. Police then attempted to control the crowd, and what I understand is that a pistol accidentally went off and wounded a student, who is now out of danger after being treated," Radhling said.

A few windows were broken during the disturbance, but otherwise the UNHCR office was operational.

"The point is also that those who were afraid they would be caught with fraudulent ration cards are the ones who had caused the problem - it was a handful of people," he commented.

UNHCR held a meeting with refugee leaders on Tuesday "to explain the situation properly. Everything went well and the refugees apologised for not having themselves [under] control".

"The remaining people who [did not receive food on Friday] are now receiving food. In the meantime, we are also preparing for repatriation. We have two teams at the camp - one doing distribution and one preparing the convoy to be leaving tomorrow," Radhling said.