HCR's Lubbers meets officials, visits refugee camps

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ruud Lubbers on Tuesday met officials of the Republic of Congo (ROC), and visited refugees living in remote northern areas of the Oubangui river in the northeast of the country, a statement from office of the UNHCR said.

Some 84,000 refugees, mainly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) northwestern Equateur Province, sought asylum along an 800-km stretch of the river to escape renewed fighting between government forces and the rebel Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), UNHCR said.

The civil war in the DRC had caused the death of some 2 million people, mainly from malnutrition and disease, and resulted in the flight of 300,000 others to neighbouring countries, UNHCR said.

The agency noted that most of the refugees in the ROC could only be reached through the Oubangui river, with many living in areas prone to flooding. Improved security conditions in the region had enhanced UNHCR's access to them, but food self-sufficiency remained hard to attain, the agency said.

Lubbers, who was on his third day of a seven-day mission to the Great Lakes region, was scheduled to visit the Loukolela camp in the east of the country, which was opened in July 2000 and hosts 1,700 people. The camp has a significant number of vulnerable refugees, including children, women and the elderly.

Meanwhile, on Monday, while in Bangui, the capital of the Central Africa Republic (CAR), Lubbers welcomed the signing of a tripartite agreement between UNHCR and the governments of CAR and Rwanda.

The agreement, signed last Saturday, is expected to pave the way for the voluntary return of some 500 Rwandan refugees currently in CAR. "I am happy that we have signed this agreement that should help Rwandans who want to return home. We are here to facilitate this, but we cannot force people to go," he added.