Over 2 million uprooted people

The US Committee for Refugees (USCR) released last week an overview report of statistics and recent history of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Among its most notable data is that DRC was the source of more than 2.1 million uprooted people at the end of 2000, including some 350,000 refugees and asylum seekers, and an estimated 1.8 million IDPs. Approximately 1 million Congolese fled their homes during the year, and there were significant numbers of refugees from DRC in at least ten countries: about 110,000 in Tanzania, nearly 100,000 in Congo-Brazzaville, some 60,000 in Zambia, 28,000 in Rwanda, 15,000 in Central African Republic, 12,000 in Angola, 10,000 in Uganda, 5,000 in Burundi, 2,000 in Cameroon, and 2,000 in Malawi. About 8,000 citizens of DRC applied for asylum in Europe during the year. Congo has a total population of about 50 million. At the same time, about 275,000 refugees from six neighbouring countries were in DRC at the year’s end: 170,000 from Angola, 70,000 from Sudan, 20,000 from Burundi, 10,000 from Uganda, 5,000 from Congo-Brazzaville, and 1,000 from Rwanda. The report noted that an estimated 30,000 or more Rwandans were in DRC living in refugee-like circumstances, but their status remained undetermined pending assessment of their asylum claims. The complete report can be found at http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/africa/congokinshasa.htm