IRIN Focus on a regional refugee crisis

Fighting between government forces and UNITA rebels in southern and western Angola is creating a large exodus of refugees into neighbouring Namibia, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). International and local relief officials told IRIN on Wednesday the exodus was growing - along with thousands more fleeing fighting in DRC. An overview UNHCR and Red Cross officials said the fighting in Angola had also trapped thousands of people just inside the country’s borders with DRC, Namibia and Zambia. Analysts said the growing numbers of people fleeing Angola indicated that the fighting was more intense than the impression given by the periodic official communiqués by both sides listing their victories and losses. The numbers of people fleeing, they said, also indicated the impact the 25-year civil war was having on neighbouring countries. Mengesha Kebede, the UNHCR Regional Representative, told IRIN that this impact would be heightened if peace was not brought soon to Angola and DRC. “We are very, very concerned for the simple reason that the number of refugee arrivals is on the increase throughout region while at the same time UNHCR is facing a serious financial crisis,” he said. “We are being asked to cut back on existing projects because of a global shortfall in funding and we cannot even feed people in camps while more hungry people are crossing borders asking for food and shelter.” The impact on neighbouring countries Humanitarian officials working with the refugees in the region said the international community had to press the belligerents in Angola and DRC to work harder for peace. Refugees, they said, were crossing from as far as DRC and Angola, not only into each others’ countries by the tens of thousands, but also from Rwanda, Burundi and Somalia, albeit in smaller numbers, to places as far south as South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland. “What people do not realise is that even countries as far south as South Africa will be feeling the impact,” Kebede said. “South Africa itself has received over 2,500 applications from DRC refugees. The impact of the fighting is not only going to be confined to neighbouring countries, but countries well beyond. As humanitarians we appeal to all that the best way of addressing the unfolding tragedy is to back the peace efforts in the DRC and Angola. The bottom line is that prevention is better than cure.” Namibia Peter Gwarada, a spokesman for the Red Cross in Namibia said that fighting in southern Angola since December last year, when the government invited Angolan armed forces to use its northern bases for operations against UNITA, had resulted in tens of thousands of people fleeing their homes and villages. According to Red Cross and UNHCR figures this week, an influx of 6,000 people since last December had swelled the population of the Osire refugee camp 250 km north of the capital Windhoek, to over 12,200. “With the fighting the way it is across the border, we are preparing for a further influx of at least 3,000 people by the end of the month,” Gwarada told IRIN. He added that the fighting in southern Angola had trapped a further 2,000 people just north of the border who were unable to cross over. For those who do find a way across, he said there was a gauntlet of newly placed landmines on both sides of the border. Across northern Namibia’s northern districts bordering Angola, UNHCR and the Namibian government said a further 10,000 Angolans had sought refuge in remote towns and villages sheltering with relatives or people of the same linguistic and ethnic affiliations. Their numbers, a spokesman told IRIN, bring the total number of Angolans in Namibia to over 22,000. With the movements of genuine refugees, are also an increasing number of bandit attacks, mostly blamed by the government on Angolan UNITA rebels. “A situation of total confusion prevails along the border,” said Kebede who recently visited the Kavango regional capital of Rundu, a dusty border town on the southern bank of the Kavango River, where Angolan soldiers and refugees now roam. “There have been landmine incidents in Kavango and the neighbouring Namibian border district of Caprivi. With landmines and cross-border attacks, the security situation is not improving.” In an example of this confusion, the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) said it was concerned that some Namibian nationals, rounded up by the Namibian authorities with Angolan refugees, had also ended up in the Osire camp. Zen Mnakapa of NSHR told IRIN: “We have the names of a divorced mother and her children already there. We have asked the humanitarian agencies to investigate and ensure than Namibians holed up in the camp are released and freed to go immediately.” Zambia Zambia’s population of 158,000 Angolan refugees two years ago has swelled by more than 28,000 people since fresh fighting broke out in Angola over the past nine months following the breakdown of the UN-brokered Lusaka accords. Their numbers, UNHCR officials told IRIN, were increasing. “Zambia has witnessed sustained arrivals of about 500-1,000 Angolans per month for the past four months,” said Ron Redmond, an agency spokesman in Geneva. “Last week, 288 more crossed into Zambia’s North Western Province. The refugees, mostly women and children, were reported to be in poor condition. Some wore only tee-shirts and had eaten only wild fruit they were able to find during their journey from Angola.” They were being transferred to Meheba, an extensive refugee settlement located near Solwezi in North Western Province, where each family received a plot of land. The settlement, with an area of 720 square km, now had a population of some 40,000 Angolan refugees, some of whom had been there since 1971. Fedellis Swai, a spokesman for UNHCR in southern Africa, said Zambia was currently hosting a total of more than 223,700 refugees, of whom 40,000 had come from DRC. He and Kebede spoke of a tense situation along Zambia’s border with Angola where thousands of Angolans had also sought shelter in remote Zambian border settlements, and where landmines and cross border attacks were also taking their toll. In Angola’s neighbouring Moxico Province, fighting in recent weeks had also trapped an estimated 2,000 people who were unable to cross the border. DRC UNHCR officials told IRIN the agency was assisting more than 100,000 Angolans in DRC. They said at least a further 38,000 Angolans were also trapped inside their country’s border unable to cross into Congo. They cited continuous arrivals of Angolans in two areas of the DRC bordering Angola. An estimated 7,000 new Angolan refugees had arrived in Kahemba in Bandundu Province in the past three months after fleeing fighting in Angola’s Lunda Norte Province. The total number of refugees in the area was now estimated by UNHCR at 15,000. Many remained inaccessible, mainly because of damaged bridges and bad roads in the region. Local authorities have decided to regroup the refugees in a new site 42 km from Kahemba, because of fears of UNITA incursions along the border. Resources on the ground were described as poor, with many of the refugees living in miserable conditions. Water, sanitation, medical and educational activities were urgently needed. In the other area, Bas-Congo Province, they said a recent UNHCR mission had confirmed the presence of 20,000 Angolan refugees in Kilueka and Nkondo camps. Another estimated 20,000 were being assisted in villages close to the border. “A mass information campaign is underway to convince these refugees to regroup in the camps, where they can receive assistance and are also at less risk,” a spokesman said. An additional 47,000 Angolan refugees near Kisenge in Katanga Province, had thus brought the total number of assisted Angolan refugees in three DRC provinces to a total of 102,000. Other countries Meanwhile, in war-torn Angola itself, UNHCR said on Wednesday there were nearly 12,000 DRC refugees who had crossed in the opposite direction. “They are mainly concentrated in Luanda and provincial capitals,” Swai said. “We are also talking here of some 3,000 Namibians and a few score Angolans in Botswana; of people crossing from DRC into Zambia and on into Malawi, where yesterday alone, 38 young men from DRC fleeing forced conscription entered the country. We are getting a handful of such cases as far south as Swaziland,” he said.