Agreement reached to repatriate 6,500 Rwandans

Agreement has been reached to repatriate about 6,500 Rwandan refugees who have been living in the Republic of the Congo since May 1996. Officials of the governments of Republic of Congo and Rwanda, as well as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, signed the accord on Friday in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital. The security adviser at the Congolese Ministry of Security and of Police, Col Pierre Mongo, said that the repatriation would be voluntary and that it would begin in three or four months. The intervening time would be used to ensure that reception sites in Rwanda were safe and ready for the refugees. Most of the refugees live in Brazzaville; in the north the country; and along the banks of the River Congo; where they are engaged in crop and livestock farming. But at the onset of the Republic of Congo's own war in 1997 between rebels and the government Dennis Sassou-Nguesso, most of the Rwandans fled again to Angola and Cameroon.