Government closes IDP sites

The government of the Republic of the Congo has closed all sites for internally displaced people (IDPs) of the Pool Department, the Ministry for Solidarity and Humanitarian Action said on Monday. In a communiqué, it said all seven sites were closed on Saturday. In January the government began to assist the voluntary return of thousands of IDPs in Kinkala, a town 50 km west of the capital, Brazzaville, to their home villages in the Pool. In April, IDPs were also taken from the districts of Mbanza-Ndounga, Ngoma Tse Tse and Kibossi back to the Pool. In all, 2,414 people have returned to their villages since the programme was launched. Other IDPs who could not stand the poor living conditions at the sites returned home without government support. Their return home has been possible because of the relative calm in the country since an agreement was reached on 17 March 2003 between rebel leader the Reverend Frederic Bitsangou and the government to honour a 1999 ceasefire accord. In October 2002, the government had authorised the establishment of seven IDP sites in the south of Brazzaville, which catered for 12,000 people, the ministry said. That measure was in response to the exodus of some 100,000 people who fled the Pool to the capital and to the departments of Bouenza, Lekoumou, Niari, Plateau, Kouilou; because of fighting between the government and Bitsangou's rebel group, known as Ninjas. The government said the UN Development Programme, European and national NGOs, the church, China, Egypt, France, Italy and the United States had all supported the return of the IDPs.