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U.N. Plans Repatriation of Congolese Refugees in Tanzania
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Friday expressed its optimism over the possibility of repatriating the refugees of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) sheltered in Tanzania as the situation in their home country is improving.
Speaking to reporters here, Ruud Lubbers, the visiting U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the developments in the DRC are very positive and the U.N. agency is planning for the repatriation of its refugees in Tanzania.
"We have started to be a bit pro-active. We're planning for the repatriation," said the UNHCR boss, who arrived Thursday for a four-day visit.
Lubbers met with Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa Friday and is scheduled to visit refugee camps in western Tanzania Saturday to see the Burundian and Congolese refugees.
"I thank the president and the home affairs minister for the hospitality of Tanzania for refugees for a long time," he said, adding, "we do hope very much that we really see now a peace process in the DRC, which will give opportunity to a number of people to go home."
"We are not only there to take care of refugees, but to try to find solutions. And the best solution always is that people can go home to where they come from," Lubbers added.
"We'll try to explain (to the Burundian government) that refugees going back will not be a burden for Burundi, but in fact an investment in peace and in the future of the country," he said, when commenting on the peace process in Burundi.
According to the latest UNHCR statistics, as at March 31, 2001, about 528,000 refugees, including 380,000 Burundians, 115,000 Congolese and 28,000 Rwandans were hosted by Tanzania, a country most seriously affected by refugee flows in the Great Lakes Region.
Last year the country saw an flow-in of more than 90,000 refugees, the statistics said.
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