UNHCR and other agencies are warning warring parties that indiscriminate or deliberate attacks against civilians are war crimes.
The Goma area is not the only conflict zone in the eastern Congo. Further north, the Congolese army is fighting the Ugandan rebel group ADF, or Allied Democratic Forces. About 50,000 people fled the area in mid-July and crossed the border into western Uganda. The UNHCR has set-up a transit center at Bubukwanga. It has a capacity to handle up to 12,000 people. The problem is there are as many as 20,000 refugees there.
“So it’s been a strain on the local communities. People were staying in schools for a while – the refugees on school grounds,” said MacIsaac.
The U.N. agency has so far transferred about 3,000 of the DRC refugees to the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement further from the border.
“One of the many good things about Uganda hosting so many refugees is that they don’t necessarily just live in camps there, like you envision a refugee camp with tents. They actually are quite open and have freedom of movement in Uganda and they have refugee settlements. They don’t look so different from a typical rural village in Uganda,” he said.
Besides the two current conflict zones in North Kivu Province, there’s also been a flare-up of local disputes over land and other issues in the Ruzizi Plain. That’s on the border of South Kivu Province and Burundi.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25