Official urges Congolese refugees to return

One the vice-presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Wednesday appealed to hundreds of Congolese refugees in Cyangugu, southwestern Rwanda, to return home. The refugees fled there when fighting flared at the end May between loyalist and dissident troops of the Congolese army in the town of Bukavu in eastern Congo.

"I appeal to you to seriously think about returning home now that the fighting has ceased," Azarias Ruberwa, one of DRC's four vice presidents, told the estimated 1,700 Congolese. "We will make sure that your security is guaranteed."

Ruberwa also promised the refugees that his transitional government would investigate killings and abuses committed by both loyalist and dissident troops during the clashes. "We as a government are keen on investigating the atrocities," he said. "We will make sure that the perpetrators of the crimes are prosecuted."

The fighting unleashed a wave of hostility towards Congolese Tutsis in Bukavu, known as the Banyamulenge. Two renegade officers from the Congolese army, Col Jules Mutebutsi and Gen Laurent Nkunda, whose forces seized Bukavu in late May, supported the Banyamulenge.

Fighting intensified between them and loyalists in the Congolese army, causing some 30,000 Banyamulenge to flee into Burundi and Rwanda.

Ruberwa also promised that the Congolese government would petition the UN Security Council to give enforcement powers to UN peacekeepers in tracking down and disarming Rwandan Hutu rebels that orchestrated the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The UN Mission in the DRC, known by its French acronym MONUC, estimates that about 10,000 Hutu rebels remain in eastern Congo. For the moment, MONUC's mandate is limited to disarming and repatriating combatants who volunteer for the process.