Refugees being harassed - UNHCR

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Angola has appealed to the authorities to guarantee the safety of refugees and humanitarian workers after reports of ongoing harassment of Congolese refugees at a camp near the capital, Luanda. UNHCR spokeswoman Delphine Marie on Monday confirmed that the 300 refugees at Sungui camp in Bengo province, 72 km north of Luanda, had allegedly been harassed over the last three months. She told IRIN the latest incident happened on Sunday. "There has been at least three incidents that we are aware of. The latest happened on Sunday evening when a group of armed men entered the camp. They fired shots in the air and then stole some equipment from a container belonging to INTERSOS, (UNHCR's implementing partner at the camp)." A dispute over land allocation lay at the heart of the problem, Marie explained. UNHCR was allocated the land, to be used for agricultural development by refugees, after the end of the war in April 2002. About 300 refugees were relocated to Sungui in May. "There appears to be some confusion over who the land belongs to. We appeal to the different ministries responsible for land allocation to clarify this matter. There was an incident where an individual entered the camp with a tractor and claimed the land for his own agricultural use. This caused a lot of tension. It is important that the refugees feel safe - any feeling of insecurity may affect the overall agricultural revival programme," Marie said. There were some 13,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Angola, the majority of whom come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, UNHCR said.