ZAMBIA: UNHCR goes all out to get Angolan refugees home before rainy season

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 11 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday that it would pull out all the stops to ensure that some 22,000 Angolan refugees living in three camps across Zambia returned home before the end of the year.

UNHCR's deputy representative in Zambia, Vedasto Mwesiga, told IRIN on Tuesday the agency had secured a second plane to repatriate those Angolans who wished to return home.

"So far around, 12,900 [refugees] have returned under the organised repatriation programme, but we are pushing to get the other 22,000 safely back home by November, ahead of the rainy season. To this extent, we now have an additional plane which will transport about 120 more passengers each day," Mwesiga explained.

During 27 years of civil war an estimated 500,000 Angolans fled to neighbouring countries - Zambia, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana and South Africa - and millions more were displaced internally.

The repatriation exercise in Zambia recently suffered a hiccup over flight clearance permission, leaving some 700 refugees stranded at a makeshift transit camp in Mongu, about 700 km west of the capital, Lusaka.

"That issue has been resolved and there is now enormous interest from the Angolans to return home," Mwesiga commented.

In Angola the UNHCR spokeswoman, Maria Benevides, said although the agency was keen on repatriating as many refugees as possible before the start of the rainy season in November, it was likely the programme would be extended until March 2006.

"Some of the corridors have just become accessible and that will assist in getting more refugees home. But in Uige, for example, where there was the Marburg outbreak, road rehabilitation had to be suspended. For the first time, we are also going to repatriate refugees to [the northern] Lunda Norte province," she noted.

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