Troops sent to border with DRC

Zambia has deployed additional troops to Kaputa in the country’s northern province bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) following incursions by armed groups from the Congo.

A senior Zambian military source told IRIN that a token force has been sent at the request of the local authorities: “The troops have been sent there to help in monitoring the movement of refugees into Zambia from DRC.” He denied news reports that armed gangs have been terrorising villagers and looting shops and homes in the area.

But a Zambian humanitarian worker confirmed to IRIN that gunmen from the DRC have been raiding villagers in Kaputa for the last three weeks. “The situation is very tense as the armed groups regularly loot shops and homes and then cross back into the DRC,” he said.

At the same time, news reports said the local authorities have burnt down more than 700 temporary shelters belonging to DRC refugees around Kaputa to force them to move to designated camps. “The local security management team decided to burn the dwellings and had since organised buses to ferry the refugees to centres where they could be screened,” Kaputa council deputy secretary, Father Elias Sampa, told the daily ‘Times of Zambia’.

He added that the council suspected that unscreened refugees fleeing the war into Zambia could cross with weapons to be used in extorting food and money from local villagers.
News reports added that two people were killed in Kaputa last week when mourners were shot at after raising an alarm when they noticed an armed gang breaking into a shop. A six-year-old boy, said the reports, was also killed in front of his parents whose home was raided by the gang.

UNHCR said this week that 1,106 DRC refugees had newly arrived in Zambia. They are mostly women and children and in poor condition. There are a total of 29,800 DRC refugees in three camps in Zambia, with an additional 15,000 refugees considered self-sufficient, living among the local population.