UNHCR to fly supplies to CAR refugees

UNHCR was scheduled to begin flying supplies to more than 25,000 Central African Republic (CAR) refugees currently living in “extremely difficult” conditions in the northwestern DRC town of Zongo, as well as in villages along the Oubangui River. “Two aircrafts will deliver a total of seven tonnes of aid in several sorties this week to the Zongo area of northwest DRC,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists in Geneva. He said that a UNHCR emergency team which arrived in Equateur province last week reported that the rainy season had started, making delivery of shelter materials “all the more pressing”. An estimated 15,000 refugees are in Zongo, which is about a kilometre across the river border from the CAR capital, Bangui. The UNHCR team, which travelled by boat from the Republic of Congo (RoC) town of Betou up river to Zongo, said that up to 7,000 refugees remain scattered across 20 villages along the DRC side of the Oubangui River. Another group of 3,000 to 4,000 refugees have gathered in the town of Libenge, halfway between Betou and Zongo, Redmond said. The first group of refugees arrived in northwestern DRC fleeing tensions in the wake of a failed coup in CAR on 28 May.