ANGOLA: Tit-for-Tat Deportations Leave Thousands At Risk

LUANDA, Oct 20 (IPS) - More than 30,000 Angolans are stranded in transit camps after being abruptly deported from the Democratic Republic of Congo and there are growing fears of a cholera outbreak as the rainy season begins.  

The families - around two thirds of whom had official refugee status in DRC - were booted out earlier this month in retaliation for Angola expelling thousands of Congolese migrants in recent years.

As of October, the U.N. reported 160,000 Congolese ehad been expelled and there are accounts from aid agencies of many women being raped, often in the process of body searches for smuggled diamonds.

An eye for an eye...

Angola began expelling Congolese migrants from its territory in 2003, mainly from the diamond-rich province of Lunda Norte where they were reported to be mining illegally.

As many as 160,000 had been expelled by October this year, amid allegations of mass rape and brutality committed by Angolan border guards.

Those who are deported to DRC, often return just days or weeks later in search of work. While the UN has been monitoring the situation, the welfare of the returnees has been left largely to Catholic aid agencies.

In July, in response to growing concerns about the alleged ill-treatment of the Congolese by border guards, U.N. staff in Kinshasha contacted its counterparts in Angola who relayed their concerns to Angola's foreign minister Assuncao dos Anjos.

This did not stop the widely-publicised "Operation Clean Up" exercise during which Angola deported more than 2,500 immigrants from the oil-rich enclave of Cabinda in less than three days.

Earlier this month - coincidentally just as DRC started to deport Angolans in retaliation - a team drawn from various agencies including UNICEF, Caritas, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, the International Organisation for Migration and the U.N.'s mission to the Congo, MONUC, visited the Bas Congo region where most of the expelled Congoloses are deposited and are due to report back on their findings shortly.

Both governments have agreed to stop the deportation. The focus has now turned to the tens of thousands homeless in northern Angola.

"You have the compounding factors of not having latrines and people drinking possible contaminated water and with the rain coming, this is a recipe for disaster," said Yolande Ditewig, a Luanda-based protection officer with the United Nations Commission for Refugees who returned from the border camps late Monday.

"There is a lack of everything you can imagine, especially food and many people say they’ve not eaten for days."

The bulk of the displaced are sheltering at the a camp known as Mama Rosa, close to the border town of Luvo, which is 70 kilometres from Mbanza Congo, the capital of Zaire province in northern Angola, but there also are other camps and settlements along the border.

"Already we have been getting reports of vomiting and diarrhoea which they think is linked to the water and we saw for ourselves a number of people lying sick in tents," said Ditewig.

According to Angolan state media, the government is spending $15 million dollars assisting the returnees with shelter, medical care and processing their identity documents.  Last Friday the Ministry of Welfare and Social Reinsertion made a direct appeal to the UNHCR in Angola for assistance, particularly for medical kits, cooking utensils and 10,000 tents for the families stuck in the transit camps.

Various agencies, including the International Federation for the Red Cross, the Angolan Red Cross, the International Organisation for Migration and U.N. agencies including UNHCR and the Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have or have had teams in area to assess the needs of the people.

Blankets, soap, mosquito nets, plastic sheeting and other non food items have already been dispatched by road up to the camps and more is expected to follow on specially-chartered aid planes.

While there is an urgent need to resettle people out of the crowded camps where conditions are bad, there is also concern about the social aspect of the reintegration. Two thirds of those rerturning have been away so long they no longer speak Portuguese.

"The family members that are receiving these people are themselves very poor or destitute." Ditewig warned.  "Many do not have the means to suddenly support an extra five or 10 people. The social impact of this process needs to be carefully monitored."

A number of senior United Nations representatives were due to fly into Luanda on Wednesday to help co-ordinate the multi-agency response.

(END/2009)

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