Zaire: More than 2,000 Zairians back home

24 April 1997
ICRC News 97/15

In the first seven days of a large-scale resettlement operation launched by the ICRC, 2,000 displaced Zairians were flown from the Kisangani area back to Goma and Bukavu aboard a Hercules C130, a Boeing 727 and WFP/UNHCR aircraft. The first to return were 150 unaccompanied children who had lost contact with their parents in the course of the past five months. Most of them were reunited with their fathers and mothers or other family members, and a few were taken to orphanages. The ICRC’s airborne operation, involving 150 to 200 round trips between mid-April and the end of May, will enable some 20,000 people from the Kisangani area and another 1,000 from Kindu to return home. A further 35,000 people stranded in Kalemie will be assisted on their way across Lake Tanganyika back to the Uvira area. Once back home each family will receive a kit containing three blankets, a jerrican, a tarpaulin, a cooking pot, 1 kg of soap, a hoe and 30 g of vegetable seed. Kits will also be distributed to some 100,000 Zairian refugees returning from Kigoma, Tanzania, and to 100,000 Zairians making their own way back to the Kivu area. The ICRC’s relief programme will cover a total of 220,000 to 250,000 people over the next three months.

Another programme which is designed to alleviate anxiety among the Zairian displaced population is the Red Cross message service. About 10,000 messages were exchanged with Kinshasa between early March and mid-April, enabling many separated family members to re-establish contact with each other after months of uncertainty. In several cases memorial ceremonies had already been held for people who were believed to have died, when news of their survival arrived.