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DR Congo

Great Lakes Briefing Notes 30 May 1997

The grand total of the Kisangani/Mbandaka airlift now stands at 41,886 refugees flown back to Rwanda. Three sorties from Mbandaka on Thursday returned 595 refugees, bringing the Mbandaka total to 4,715 returnees.

Out of Kisangani, a total of 37,171 refugees have been repatriated by air to date.

Access is still a huge problem. On Wednesday a UNHCR road engineer was prevented from going beyond km 42 to carry out a road inspection. UNHCR believes that large groups of people remain in the forest west of that area.

We have not received permission to access Ikela some 300 kms southwest of Kisangani where there are reportedly some 50 sick and vulnerable people.

In the Mbandaka area agencies collect some 600 people a day from outlying areas. UNHCR has dispatched four additional trucks to help collect people. Two more are trucks are being airlifted today.

We are also trying to alert as many people as possible in the Kisangani and Mbandaka area to the fact that there is an airlift and that there is a possibility to be flown back to Rwanda.

CONGO

Rwandan refugees are still trickling into Congo from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The total now is estimated at 15,000. Some have been marooned in swampy areas where aid workers can't reach them. The government has sent barges to collect them. Yesterday, some 4,100 Rwandan refugees arrived in Brazzaville in barges. Some of them may be former Rwandan military and their families. The group is first being transferred to a transit camp at Kintele 30 kms from Brazzaville where they will be screened by ICRC to determine their status.