New refugees database being created

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) on Thursday embarked on an exercise to register afresh all refugees in Uganda using a computerised database system that officials say would improve monitoring and identification. "We are compiling the first ever refugee computer database in Uganda, where all refugees' details including their photographs will be recorded," Dennis Duncan, UNHCR spokesman in Kampala told IRIN. Test runs of the new software, he added, had started for about 15,000 refugees at Nakivale refugee settlement in southwestern Uganda. The registration exercise would eventually be extended to compile data on each of the estimated 220,000 refugees living in the east African country. Duncan said the system would ease cross-referencing, identification and monitoring of the refugees. "We shall be able to know their age brackets and be able to know what requirements should be sent where," he added. He said technicians from Microsoft were working with the UNHCR team to register the refugees in the first trial runs and that the data would eventually be shared with the government and other relief agencies that help refugees, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. People who fled civil war in Sudan form the majority of the refugee population in Uganda. There are an estimated 180,000 Sudanese refugees in the country. Others come from Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Kenya. Duncan, however, said that since the beginning of the year, up to 13,000 Rwandan refugees had been repatriated, with 46 of them returning to Rwanda only two days ago. Another 45 are due to be repatriated next Wednesday.