ICRC unites 137 children with their families

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Friday flew 137 unaccompanied children across frontlines in the DRC conflict to reunite them with families. In its largest airlift of unaccompanied children to date, the agency flew 99 children and teenagers from the rebel-held eastern city of Goma to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. It then returned to Goma with 38 other children to rejoin their families in the east of the country, an ICRC press release stated. Most of the children had been separated from their families since the DRC conflict flared up in August 1998, it said. Since January 2000, the ICRC has reunited 541 Congolese children with their families, and repatriated 604 children to Rwanda. With the help of the national Red Cross Society, it is still trying to trace the relatives of 1,198 unaccompanied minors identified in government- and rebel-controlled parts of the country.