Thousands of residents returning to Bunia

Thousands of residents who fled inter-militia fighting in the town of Bunia in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have begun returning to their homes, the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, known as MONUC, reported on Tuesday.

"With a general calm now prevailing in town, people have been returning since last Thursday," Leocardio Salmeron, the MONUC spokesman, told IRIN.

"They are arriving in small groups - 1,000 one day, 1,200 another day and 1,300 the next - but we do not yet have definitive figures and we are trying to compile a more accurate estimate," he said.

The humanitarian situation had not worsened, he said, because of the small number of daily arrivals.

"Daily activities are restarting little by little, vegetables and meat are available at the market, so it seems there is a sufficient food supply at the moment," he said.

Humanitarian agencies had estimated that between 200,000 and 350,000 people fled Bunia and the surrounding region when fighting between Hema and Lendu militias took a turn for the worse in May.

For its part, MONUC estimated that at the height of the fighting, between 10,000 and 17,000 people sought refuge in its Bunia compound and at the airport, which was also under its control.

"The majority of these people are trying to figure out when they can return home, because many of their homes were damaged," Salmeron said.

"Humanitarian organisations had done a tremendous amount of work to ensure the restoration of water purification facilities, and the Congolese Red Cross have removed all corpses from the city," he added.

Meanwhile, Hema representatives in the capital, Kinshasa, have issued a statement in which they accused the French-led multinational intervention force in Bunia of abusing members of their ethnic group. They said the troops had ignored the abduction of a translator of the AFP French news service, Akite Kisembo.

However, the force spokesman, Col Gerard Dubois, denied the accusations.

"This is completely false and none of these problems have been brought to our attention," Dubois said.

He confirmed that Kisembo had been reported missing.

"We are very concerned by this disappearance, and investigations are underway," he said.

MONUC has also confirmed Kisembo's disappearance, but denied reports that his body was found on Saturday among other corpses, as had been alleged by the Hema communique.