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DR of Congo refugees in Tanzania can start returning home in mid-October, UN says

DR of Congo refugees in Tanzania can start returning home in mid-October, UN says

The first of more than 150,000 refugees who fled fighting in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will begin to go home from Tanzania next month to the most secure areas under an official voluntary repatriation operation, the United Nations High Commission for Refuges (UNHCR) said today.

The first of more than 150,000 refugees who fled fighting in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will begin to go home from Tanzania next month to the most secure areas under an official voluntary repatriation operation, the United Nations High Commission for Refuges (UNHCR) said today.

A Tripartite Commission meeting between the two governments and UNHCR in Kinshasa, DRC’s capital, late last week decided that some of the 152,284 Congolese refugees in Nyaragusu, Lugufu I, and Lugufu II camps will start the trek home by boat and bus on 15 October, it said.

UNHCR's representative in Tanzania, Chrysantus Ache, cautioned: "The capacities to receive returnees in their home areas without creating a humanitarian crisis and the logistical means for the actual movement put limits on the number of refugees we can repatriate every week."

Some refugees have been interested in the voting for the constitution and political representation scheduled from November to April, but Mr. Ache said: "You cannot expect that a large number of refugees will return in time for the voter registration in the DRC, therefore we need to de-link refugee repatriation from the electoral process."

Meanwhile, more than 800 "spontaneous" returnees have been reported every week since August and their total since October of last year number more than 14,000. They have arrived mostly from Tanzania, but also from Rwanda and Burundi.