Civilians are slowly returning to their homes despite rebel FDLR militia retaking former positions in places like Kalembe in Masisi

DRC: IDPs returning to North Kivu despite violence

Photo: Nicholai Lidow/IRIN

Women walk along the high mountain passes of Masisi territory, North Kivu (file photo): Civilians are slowly returning to their homes despite rebel FDLR militia retaking former positions in places like Kalembe in Masisi

KINSHASA, – Civilians are slowly returning to their homes in the North Kivu region of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), despite continuing violence and displacement due to militia activities, sources said.

“While we are seeing tentative returns in some areas, we are also seeing new displacement due to ongoing rape, killings and looting,” Bob Kitchen, country director for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), said in Goma.

The IRC said it had recently registered more than 14,000 returnees from Uganda in Ishasha and Nyakakoma towns. Many of the returnees, however, found their homes looted and empty, spokeswoman Emily Meehan said.

The returnees were also experiencing congestion in camps and among relatives who had temporarily housed them. “One household assisted by the IRC had 11 people living in a 3 sqm room,” Meehan added.

A 35-day operation by the DRC and Rwandan armies to dislodge Hutu militias in the area ended on 25 February, with the Rwandan troops returning home.

“The Hutu Rwandan groups have not been completely destroyed but their preparedness has been significantly reduced,” joint operations commander Lt Gen John Numbi said. The DRC army, he added, was continuing to pursue the militias.

At least one million people are estimated to have fled their homes in North Kivu as violence, mainly perpetrated by the Forces démocratique pour la liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), escalated in 2008.

“We constantly monitor the movement of fleeing civilians in North Kivu, in order to respond to their unfolding needs,” Kitchen said. “Civilians in [the] province continue to endure chaos, displacement and suffering.”

Tens of thousands of those uprooted from their homes were living without adequate food, shelter, water or sanitation.

Officials at the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) said the FDLR had regained control of some villages in the region.

“The FDLR have regrouped in Nyabiondo, Kibua and Kashebere, reoccupying some of their former positions like Kalembe in Masisi territory as some towns in Walikale and Lubero,” said MONUC’s spokesman, John Paul Dietrich. Kalembe is 12km north of Nyabiondo in Masisi.

The militias have recently launched attacks against DRC government positions. “On the morning of 2 March, the FARDC [DRC national army] were attacked in Kagheri, 30km south of Lubero,” Dietrich said.

They have also continued to commit atrocities against civilians, especially in Pinga area. A recent assessment mission from the IRC in Rutshuru territory found villages, homes and schools pillaged.

“As is the case throughout North Kivu, different armed groups have controlled the area at various points in the past four months,” Meehan said. “Sporadic eruptions of violence have spurred waves of displacement.”

ei/eo/aw/mw source.www.irinnews.org

AID agencies in Sudan under investigation – may be expelled

SUDAN: More aid agencies under “investigation”

Photo: IRIN

The removal of key agencies would be a severe blow to the poorest, especially in Darfur where violence continues to affect many civilians (file photo)

KHARTOUM, – More relief organisations are threatened with expulsion from Sudan, officials warned, as “investigations” continue into the activities of those suspected of collaborating with the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“The process continues,” the head of the government Humanitarian Affairs Commission Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman warned. “More NGOs are under focus and investigation. If we find evidence, we will expel them.”

Sudan has so far ordered 13 NGOs to leave, saying they provided information to the world court before it issued an arrest warrant for President Omar el-Bashir on war crimes charges.

“The decision by the government of Sudan to expel 13 NGOs involved in aid operations in Darfur will, if implemented, could cause irrevocable damage to humanitarian operations there,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned.

The decision by the government of Sudan to expel 13 NGOs involved in aid operations in Darfur will, if implemented, could cause irrevocable damage to humanitarian operations there

These operations, according to the UN, were key to maintaining a lifeline to 4.7 million people in the western region of Darfur. About 300,000 people have died there, either in direct combat or due to disease, malnutrition or reduced life expectancy over the past five years.

Bashir denies the ICC charges, describing them as a plot of western “neo-colonialism”. His supporters came out in large numbers in the capital, Khartoum, on 5 March to protest.

Rahman did not name any specific NGO, but said the organisations being probed worked not only in Darfur, but “all over Sudan”.

The fresh expulsion threat came despite growing international pressure – including from the European Commission and US – on Sudan to allow the expelled groups back in.

People at risk

Campaign group Amnesty International warned that 2.2 million lives were at stake. The people in the western region of Darfur were “being punished by its own government in response to the arrest warrant”, it added.

Photo: ReliefWeb

The removal of key agencies would be a severe blow to the poorest, especially in Darfur where violence continues to affect large numbers of civilians, observers said.

“The Sudanese authorities must immediately reverse their decision,” Amnesty’s deputy director for Africa, Tawanda Hondora, said. “The alternative is simply unthinkable.”

Ten NGOS were expelled on 5 March, and three more the next day. These included Oxfam, CARE, MSF-Netherlands, Mercy Corps, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Rescue Committee, Action contre la faim, Solidarités and CHF International.

Some of them were asked to turn over a list of their assets and banking details, while others had their computers, communications equipment and vehicles confiscated, according to Catherine Bragg, the UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator.

While some international staff were given only 24 hours to leave Sudan, others were detained for a few hours, then released.

“They cooperated with the ICC – some sent fabricated [information] to the ICC about genocide,” Rahman said.

The expelled aid groups have rejected the accusations. Oxfam, in a statement, said it “does not have an opinion on the [ICC’s] activities, and our sole focus is meeting humanitarian and development needs in Sudan”.

Photo: Heba Aly/IRIN

The UN’s humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, with some 25,000 personnel, will continue, said Ban

Rebel groups in Darfur were angered by the expulsions and have demanded they be reversed.

“The people of Darfur are already hungry – and now the government wants to take their food away,” said Maghoub Hussein, a spokesman for the Unity faction of the Sudan Liberation Army. “This is the government wanting to make the people suffer more, and they must be made to stop.”

Between 200 and 300 international staff are believed to employed by the organisations ordered to leave. A total of around 16,000 aid workers operate in Darfur, some 95 percent of whom are Sudanese.

Ban pledged that the UN’s humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, with some 25,000 personnel in Sudan, would continue.

pm/eo/mw source.www.irinnews.org

The closure of the showgrounds demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the humanitarian and protection needs of Zimbabweans seeking refuge in South Africa

SOUTH AFRICA: One-stop 72-hour process to legalize Zimbabweans

Photo: Taurai Maduna/IRIN

Living conditions in the showgrounds in Musina had been a cause for concern

JOHANNESBURG,- A one-stop 72-hour service for undocumented Zimbabwean migrants in an enclosed military base outside the South African town of Musina, near Zimbabwe’s border, could ease tensions and problems around the issue, according to a senior UN official.

The call from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) came after the South African government’s decision to close a refugee reception centre located on a site near the town used for agricultural shows.

The site has been declared off-limits to the 2,000 to 3,000 Zimbabwean migrants who would queue every day at the mobile home affairs office at the showgrounds to apply for documentation and often spend nights out in the open.

“The closure of the showgrounds demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the humanitarian and protection needs of Zimbabweans seeking refuge in South Africa and will have extremely negative consequences, as no allowances have been made to ensure their access to shelter, food or medical assistance,” said Jonathan Whittall, a spokesman for Mèdecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the medical humanitarian NGO, which was among those criticising the closure. 

The migrants’ camp at the showgrounds to get their hands on asylum-seeker status papers, which allows them to stay legally in South Africa as their asylum request is processed..

But there had been concern around the living conditions at the site, which had only a few water taps and sanitation, and bedding often consisted of a flattened cardboard box laid out on the dusty ground.

“It was not fit for people to stay in and it was not a camp,” said Joseph Mohajane, a spokesman for the department of home affairs defending the decision to close the showgrounds to the migrants.

Military option

The UNHCR, which has been lobbying to move the refugee reception centre run by the South African Department of Home Affairs to the “SMG” military base, just outside Musina, reiterated the call on the day of the closure.

The SMG has been used to hold undocumented migrants before their deportation, and in a recent report, Monitoring Immigration Detention in South Africa, Lawyers for Human Rights condemned the conditions at the base.

However, Bruno Geddo, a senior UNHCR official in Musina, told IRIN the facilities would be expanded: “The military base is enclosed and controlled; the undocumented migrants will be brought in and can stay in shelters that we can set up in a small portion of the area.”

He added: “The undocumented migrants, who will be provided with food and healthcare, will be processed within 72 hours and then UNHCR will transport them to their intended destination.”

Geddo said the relocation was being discussed by local government authorities and the South African departments of home affairs and defence.

In the interim, UNHCR has negotiated board and lodging for 350 undocumented migrants at local churches in Musina. “It is a start,” he said. UNHCR has also negotiated with the local police not to arrest them.

Zimbabwe’s decade-long recession and political crisis has triggered an exodus of an estimated three miillion people – mostly economic migrants – looking for work and escape from the hardships.

jk/he/oa source.www.irinnews.org

SOMALIA: IDPs returning to “risky” Mogadishu

 

Photo: Hassan Mahamud Ahmed/IRIN

Children in an IDP camp north of Mogadishu (file photo): Thousands of residents are returning back to a risky situation in Mogadishu

NAIROBI, – Hawa Salad Halane and her two children are among the families returning to Heliwa district of north Mogadishu after 18 months in an overcrowded camp on the outskirts of the capital.

“We came back five days ago but found most of our homes destroyed by shells; everything is either destroyed or looted,” Halane told IRIN on 4 March.

Thousands of Mogadishu residents such as Halane opted to return following the withdrawal, in late January, of Ethiopian troops after two years supporting the Transitional Federal Government.

Halane said many of the returnees were using plastic sheeting “and anything else we can find” for roofing after the iron sheets on their homes were looted.

“This will do for now but if it rains I don’t know what we will do,” she said. “It is not what I expected but it is better than what I left behind [the IDP camp].”

Halane said some of her neighbours did not even have walls on their homes. “We are one of the lucky ones.”

She said she hoped the new government, installed in February after the resignation of former President Abdullahi Yusuf, would come to their aid.

“We have nothing to rebuild with. Without my husband I don’t even know how I will feed my children.

During her displacement, Halane lost touch with her husband. “We have not seen him for seven months. I don’t even know whether he is alive or dead.”

She said she was still hanging on to a makeshift shelter in the camp as insurance. “I don’t know if things will settle, so I asked my neighbours in the camp to keep my place for me in case,” she said.
Although Halane’s family and others have begun returning, many others remain in camps, said Ahmed Dini of Peaceline, a civil society group in Mogadishu.

“There are returns but I would describe it as a trickle, not a flood yet,” Dini said.

He said most of the returnees were coming back to a risky situation, with little or no services.

“They have no health facilities or schools and on top of that there is no help to assist them restart their lives,” he said.

“Most homes are either partially or totally destroyed.”

He added that many of the families could not afford to rebuild. “We may have to set up [IDP] camps inside their compounds.”

Malnourished children

Dini said his organisation, which monitors children, had noticed many of the returning youngsters were malnourished.

Moreover, he said, many neighbourhoods were infested with mines and other unexploded ordnances, “posing the greatest danger to children”.

Another civil society source told IRIN the returns were driven by the difficulties in the camps. He warned, however, that they were taking a “great risk. We have a new government but Mogadishu is still a very dangerous place and fighting could resume at any time.”

The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimates that at least 40,000 displaced Somalis have returned to Mogadishu. At least 1.3 million Somalis are displaced within the country, according to UNHCR.

ah/mw source.www.irinnews.org