Kilwa residents return home, aid needs assessed

At least 3,000 Congolese refugees who fled to Zambia last week to avoid fighting have returned to their homes in Kilwa and are not in urgent need of humanitarian aid, provincial and humanitarian officials told IRIN on Monday.

"Their situation is not alarming so far," Chikez Diemu, the deputy governor of Congo's southeastern province of Katanga, said.

Provincial authorities said they had sent an undisclosed quantity of food to the town's 6,000 residents. Another 400 or 500 people are still on Kilwa Island, on the Zambian side of Lake Mweru. They expected to return home during the day.

During their weeklong ordeal, the refugees were traumatised and hungry, Diemu said. They had fled when some 30-armed men, claiming to be Mayi-Mayi militiamen, briefly captured the town on 15 October, demanding that they be integrated in the new Congolese army.

The short battle for the town also forced Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-Belgium to evacuate its personnel temporarily. At the time, they said a two-member team would be sent into Kilwa to review the humanitarian needs of its remaining population. MSF now says conditions there are not serious.

"We discovered two wounded people at the hospital, but no catastrophic humanitarian situation in those areas where people returned to their homes with food," Karl Nawej, assistant coordinator of MSF-Belgium, told IRIN.

However, he said the charity continued to deal with a measles outbreak that had been present in the region for some time.

"There has been no epidemic due to the displacement of residents and because of the fighting," he said.