1,000 refugees return from Uganda

At least 1,000 Rwandan refugees have returned home from Uganda since January, in a repatriation programme organised by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the agency reported on Monday. Some 228 of the returnees left Nakivale Camp in the southwestern district of Mbarara in Uganda on Monday, aboard five UNHCR trucks. "The returnees were visibly happy to be back," UNHCR reported. "Many had not seen their home country in at least 10 years, while their children had been born in the settlements and were setting foot in Rwanda for the first time." The agency reported that two more convoys, of a similar size, from Oruchinga and Kyaka II camps were scheduled to follow this week. Of the 3,000 refugees who have registered for the UNHCR return programme, the agency expects that more than half will have returned home by the end of this week. Some two million people fled Rwanda following the 1994 genocide. UNHCR said that as at mid-2003, there were still some 60,000 Rwandan refugees in the region, with 18,000 in Uganda. UNHCR reported that Rwandan authorities had established a transit camp at Byumba, 25 km from the border with Uganda, that could register at least 500 people per day. The camp was built to enable a speedy processing of the returnees back to national status within one day. The agency said that after registration, each family would receive a repatriation package comprising a basic kitchen set, plastic sheeting, blankets, jerry cans and soap. The agency reported that it expected to help two-thirds of the remaining 60,000 Rwandan refugees in the region to return home in 2004.