UNITED NATIONS
Department of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network
for the Great Lakes
Tel: +254 2 622147
Fax: +254 2 622129
e-mail: irin@dha.unon.org

IRIN Emergency Update No.162 on the Great Lakes (Thursday 01 May 1997)

- Face-to-face talks between Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko and rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabila appeared to back on track after both sides finally agreed to meet on board a South African warship in international waters. The meeting, originally planned

ADFL forces are reported by observers on the scene to be advancing toward Kinshasa from Ilebo, Tshikapa, Kananga and Kikwit. There are reports government soldiers are destroying bridges in the area of Kenge, probably referring to those crossing the Kwengo River. Mining officials who were in the area report seeing tanks, armored personnel carriers, and long-range artillery in the advancing ADFL force. Zaire Watch has not kept close scrutiny on ADFL military capabilities, but finds the report about tanks and long-range artillery

4:41 PM EDT
BIARO CAMP, Zaire (Reuter) - Thousands more Rwandan Hutu refugees, many with appalling injuries, streamed back to camps south of Kisangani Thursday as U.N. agencies struggled to clear a backlog of refugees waiting to be airlifted home.

Aid workers at Biaro camp, 25 miles south of Kisangani, said they could not keep up with the flood of refugees returning to the camps they fled in terror last week.

They said that at least a dozen people had died in Biaro camp overnight either from illness or from injuries.

Rebel leader Laurent Kabila Sunday gave

(Excerpt)
Weekly News

The International Federation and the Zairean Red Cross are distributing food and soap to 12,500 displaced and vulnerable
people in Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire. Life-saving medicines for up to 30,000 people are being sent to three districts in the western part of the country where the shortage of drugs is especially acute in the wake of recent upheavals in the country.
The Federation is also stockpiling emergency supplies in case trouble arises in Kinshasa and surrounding areas. Food, plastic sheeting, hygiene articles

LUBUMBASHI, Zaire (Reuter) - Zairean rebels Wednesday shrugged off President Mobutu Sese Seko's refusal to hold talks and said they would take their war to the capital Kinshasa.
A senior aide to rebel chief Laurent Kabila told Reuters the rebels had nothing to lose from Mobutu's refusal to meet Kabila on a South African navy ship. Rebel foreign policy strategist Bizima Karaha said: ''No change in venue will be accepted by us.''

The aide said rebels were consolidating a push towards the capital from Kikwit, 390 km (240 miles) east of Kinshasa,

4:56 PM EDT
KINSHASA, Zaire (Reuter) - U.S. envoy Bill Richardson said Wednesday Zaire's President Mobutu Sese Seko and rebel leader Laurent Kabila agreed to hold their first face-to-face meeting Friday on a South African ship in the Atlantic.

"The meeting will take place Friday on a South African ship. The ship will be sailing from Libreville into international waters," he said after one hour and 40 minutes of talks with Mobutu.

"Hopefully it will lead to peace in Zaire," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations told reporters in Kinshasa.

(April 30, 1997) Human Rights Watch today urged immediate international action to save the lives of thousands of Rwandan refugees threatened by military attack, hunger and disease in eastern Zaire. The statement followed news of the abduction and feared murder of fifty children from a pediatric hospital and attacks by soldiers of the rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL) which drove some 85,000 people far fom much needed food and medicine.
Peter Takirambudde, Director of Human Rights Watch/Africa, stated: "These outrages are only the most recent

NATIONS UNIES
Departement des Affaires Humanitaires / IRIN
Tel: +254 2 622 147
Fax: +254 2 622 129
e-mail: irin@dha.unon.org

IRIN: Bulletin quotidien no 161 d'information sur la region des Grands Lacs (du mercredi 30 avril 97)

* Alors que les rebelles zairois continuent d'avancer sur Kinshasa, les efforts diplomatiques sont toujours orientes ver l'organisations de pourparlers directes entre le chef des rebelles Laurent-Desire Kabila et le President Mobutu Sese Seko. Cependant, les espoirs d'hier, comme quoi les pourparlers auraient finalement lieu, ont

S/PRST/1997/24
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

At the 3773rd meeting of the Security Council, held on 30 April 1997 in connection with the Council's consideration of the item
entitled "The situation in the Great Lakes region", the President of the Security Council made the following statement on behalf of the Council:

"The Security Council reaffirms the statement of its President of 24 April 1997 (S/PRST/1997/22) and welcomes the recent
agreement by the President of Zaire and the leader of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo/Zaire