UN agency set to resume repatriation of refugees living in Central African Republic

The United Nations refugee agency announced today that it plans to resume next week the voluntary repatriation of nearly 9,000 people from the Central African Republic (CAR) back to their homes in either southern Sudan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

About 8,000 Sudanese and 900 Congolese will be repatriated by the middle of 2007 under the programme, which was suspended earlier this year because the border between the CAR and Sudan was officially closed and the volatile DRC was holding its first free and fair elections in more than 40 years.

Starting next Wednesday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will fly Sudanese by air from the Mboki settlement in the southeast of the CAR, where most have been living. More than 2,100 others were repatriated before the border was closed in April. The CAR Government agreed to open a “humanitarian corridor” to allow the repatriation operation to resume.

On Friday, the first of the Congolese refugees – who are nearly all from the Equateur province – will cross the Oubangui River, which separates the CAR and the DRC, by boat. They will join 3,250 refugees who left before the lengthy election period began.

UNHCR’s representative in the CAR, Bruno Geddo, said in a statement released in the capital, Bangui, that the refugees were grateful for the hospitality they have received while living in the country.

“But now that the circumstances in their home countries are gradually improving, they have opted for return, and they are looking forward to regaining their homes,” he said. “By returning home, the refugees are sending a strong signal that they are committed to help rebuilding their country of origin and contributing to national reconciliation.”

The Sudanese are returning following a comprehensive peace agreement last year that ended a 20-year civil war in the south of the vast country, while the Congolese are also returning as their country recovers from a brutal civil conflict.

The repatriation programme is resuming as widespread criminal activity and recent clashes between national security forces and armed rebels have forced around 220,000 inhabitants of the CAR to flee their homes. An estimated 150,000 have become internally displaced persons (IDPs), mostly in the north, near the borders with Cameroon, Chad and Sudan’s Darfur region. Some 50,000 live in UNHCR-assisted camps in southern Chad and another 20,000 reside in Cameroon.