UNHCR begins airlifting Angolans home

The UN agency for refugees (UNHCR) has begun airlifting Angolans home, with the first group of 318 leaving western Zambia at the weekend for Lumbala N'guimbo in Angola's eastern province of Moxico, a UN official said. "We will conduct the airlifting operations twice a week, while our weekly convoys of refugees will continue to leave for eastern Angola by road," said Kelvin Shimo, a spokesperson for the UNHCR. More than 4,000 refugees have returned home through Cazombo and various other points of entry since the resumption of the operation in June, after the rains ended. Of the 40,000 Angolans to be repatriated from Zambia by the end of this year, about 18,000 are from the Meheba camp in North-Western province, 12,000 from Mayukwayukwa camp in Western province, 8,000 from Nangweshi camp, also in the Western province, and 2,000 from Ukwimi camp in the east of the country, Shimo said. The returnees are being provided with food rations to last them until the next harvest season. Tens of thousands of refugees have also returned from Zambia under their own steam since the end of the Angolan civil war in April 2002. Transportation for repatriating the refugees has been provided by the International Organisation for Migration, Shimo said. Programmes for repatriation of the 440,000 Angolan refugees, who fled mainly to Zambia, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo during the country's 27-year-long civil war, have been underway since 2003.