UN agency, ending Angolan refugee repatriation soon, focuses on re-settlement

Angolan refugees in Namibia are set to begin boarding planes for home early next month as part of a United Nations refugee agency programme that has helped more than 300,000 Angolans re-settle themselves after three decades of war and will return more than 50,000 others by October.

Convoys from Kisenge in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Angola’s Moxico province should end in April, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said, while repatriation flights from Zambia and Botswana will resume in May, along with land convoys from Zambia.

UNHCR plans to repatriate 53,000 Angolans during the next seven months. “After that, the three-year period of assisted repatriation will be concluded,” says Annette Nyekan of UNHCR in Angola.

“As of 2006, UNHCR will not provide transport but we will still offer repatriation packages for those who return spontaneously,” she adds.

UNHCR’s reintegration package contains two months of food rations from the UN World Food Programme (WFP), along with such basic non-food items as a kitchen set, plastic sheeting, building materials and agricultural tools.

With the end of the repatriation phase, UNHCR will turn its full attention to the other three phases in its “4Rs” strategy: reintegration, rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Landmines are a threat to life and limb in large parts of the country. The infrastructure has been destroyed, basic services are lacking and job opportunities are scarce, UNHCR says, especially in the provinces most affected by the war – Moxico, Cuando Cubango, Uige and Zaire.

In addition, Uige in the north has lost 95 people to a rare acute haemorrhagic fever called Marburg virus and all non-essential travel to that area has been suspended.

With all of these problems, the head of UNHCR’s Angolan Programme Unit, Jose Samaniego, says, “Our programmes here are increasing. We are shifting the focus from bringing people back home to making their return sustainable.”

In 2006, most of the $10 million budget will cover community-approved, UNHCR-supported projects to improve water supplies and sanitation, health, education, income generation, road repairs and other needs, the agency says.