UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said at the weekend that the situation in Rwanda had improved and that many efforts had been made towards reconciliation, according to news reports on the agency’s website on Tuesday. In her eighth visit to Rwanda since 1994, Ogata held talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the need for stability in the Great Lakes region. “Rwanda and Bosnia have been the biggest challenges of my mandate,” Ogata was quoted as saying, adding that she was in Rwanda to evaluate the return and reintegration of nearly two million Hutu refugees. UNHCR had invested more than $200 million in Rwanda since 1994, and had repatriated 45,000 refugees in 1999, Ogata said. She added that some 60,000 refugees were still living in the DRC, and that Rwanda needed more economic development to facilitate the return of these and other compatriots to the country.
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