UNHCR to suspend repatriation from Zambia to Angola amid rains

LUANDA, Angola, Nov 4 (UNHCR) - Organised returns from Zambia to Angola will be suspended next week as the onset of the rainy season renders roads impassable, said the UN refugee agency today.

The last return convoy of Angolan refugees in Zambia will leave on November 11 for Cazombo in Angola's western province of Moxico, the main destination of Angolan refugees in Zambia. UNHCR will resume repatriation at the end of the rainy season in May next year.

However, organised convoys from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Namibia will continue to parts of Angola that are still accessible - in the latter case as rains arrive later in southern Angola bordering Namibia.

Since the start of the voluntary repatriation programme in June this year, more than 41,000 Angolan refugees have gone home with UNHCR from the DRC (20,000), Zambia (17,600) and Namibia (3,500). The refugee agency has also provided assistance to some 20,000 spontaneous returnees going home on their own, giving them relief and food aid to help them get started back home.

"UNHCR is assisting Angolans to go back only to areas that have the basic infrastructure to allow them to begin a new life," said the agency's spokesman Ron Redmond at a news briefing in Geneva Tuesday. "However, we believe repatriation will be very difficult in 40 percent of the primary areas of returns because of the lack of water and sanitation, medical and other social services. Wide areas of Angola are also heavily mined."

Three decades of civil war in Angola had driven hundreds of thousands of Angolans into neighbouring countries, and displaced many others within the country. But the signing of a peace agreement last year has paved the way for large numbers of refugees and internally displaced people to return home.

There were an estimated 440,000 Angolans in neighbouring countries before UNHCR launched its repatriation programme. The refugee agency plans to help some 75,000 Angolan refugees return home this year, with another 145,000 next year.