This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR
spokesman Kris Janowski (to whom quoted text may be attributed) at today's
press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
1. Colombia/Ecuador
UNHCR has now established a field presence in Ecuador's northern Sucumbios Province, where an estimated 4,000 people fleeing fighting in southern Colombia have arrived over the past month. UNHCR staff in Sucumbios report that some 300 people from Colombia's strife-torn Putumayo Department arrived in Ecuador over the weekend. There are currently two UNHCR staff stationed in Sucumbios and a third is expected in November. They are working with local and national authorities to provide assistance to the Colombians, the vast majority of whom are believed to be transiting through Ecuador on their way back to safer areas inside Colombia - both to the east and west of Putumayo.
The deterioration of the Colombian conflict in the past few years has led to the internal displacement of at least 1.1 million people. Nearly 600,000 Colombians are estimated to have been uprooted in the past two years alone, a worrisome trend that is continuing in places like Putumayo, where profits from the drug trade are fuelling a bloody conflict involving leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary forces and government troops.
Most of the displaced have remained in Colombia, although there have been relatively small numbers of people fleeing to neighboring countries to seek asylum. UNHCR opened an office in Bogotá, Colombia, in June 1998 and also has three field offices in Colombia which are close to the borders with Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador. The first of the three field offices opened in November 1999 in the northeastern city of Barrancabermeja, an oil port on the Magdalena River near Venezuela. The second opened earlier this year in Apartadó, in the northern region of Urabá near the border with Panama. The last office was officially opened in mid-August in Puerto Asis in the southern Putumayo region on the border with Ecuador.
2. High Commissioner in Russia
High Commissioner Sadako Ogata discussed the humanitarian situation in the Northern Caucasus with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Monday. During the meeting at the Kremlin, which lasted just under one hour and which UNHCR officials present described as "good and cordial," they spoke about the need to help an estimated 140,000 people displaced from Chechnya to Ingushetia through the winter. Mrs. Ogata, who also met on Monday with Vladimir Kalamanov, Russia's human rights envoy for Chechnya, told Russian officials that conditions on the ground in Chechnya would have to improve considerably for the displaced to go back. Russian officials probed UNHCR's willingness to expand its aid to Chechnya itself. The High Commissioner said UNHCR may somewhat expand its limited convoy operation. But she made clear that the focus of the aid operation would only shift from Ingushetia to Chechnya once the displaced themselves start going back. For that to happen, she said, adequate political, economic and social conditions must be created.
During the meeting with the High Commissioner, President Putin said he had decided to award Mrs. Ogata the "Order of Friendship" in recognition of UNHCR's humanitarian work in the Northern Caucasus. Today, the High Commissioner was scheduled to meet with Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
3. Emergency aid to DRC Congolese stranded in Angola
Last Friday, UNHCR distributed bread, dry rations, blankets and jerrycans to 182 Congolese, 60 percent of them women and children, stranded for six days without adequate food and water on the tarmac of Angola's Viana airport. UNHCR was called to help by the airport authorities, who were unable to supply the group. The stranded people were part of a larger group of 802 former Congolese soldiers from the Katanga province and their families who were being returned to the DRC from Angola. The remaining 620 had already been flown to Kinshasa earlier last week. The people helped by UNHCR were flown to Kinshasa on Saturday. UNHCR delivered 85 plastic sheets and 1,200 plastic mats to the site in Kinshasa.
UNHCR was not aware of the repatriation movement, apparently agreed upon bilaterally by DRC and Angola, until the call for emergency help came.
To avoid disorderly movements, UNHCR has been negotiating with both governments for several months to put together a tripartite repatriation operation for the some 11,000 Congolese who are still refugees in Angola. Most of these refugees are from the western part of Katanga, which is not affected by the fighting between rebels and government forces. The plan was to repatriate them through the southeastern city of Lubumbashi. Many of the Congolese are keen to return to the DRC because of the deteriorating situation in Angola.
4. Sudan/Ethiopia
UNHCR is sending this week a team of 15 protection officers to Khartoum (Sudan) to prepare the screening of Ethiopian refugees who fled their country before 1991 and who now fall under the "cessation clause," declared on 1 March this year in all countries still hosting Ethiopian refugees. The protection officers will provide training to their 15 counterparts from the Sudanese Government, and then they will together carry out the screening process.
The operation follows the decision last September to withdraw blanket refugee status from Ethiopians who fled during the Mengistu regime, considering that conditions were now safe for them to repatriate. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have repatriated since that government collapsed in 1991, including 72,000 from Sudan and 80,000 from Kenya under UNHCR operations. Sudan still hosts the largest group of Ethiopians who left their country prior to 1991, with 12,000 in camps and perhaps twice as many in urban areas. So far, 1,200 Ethiopians in Sudan have appealed to have their cases reviewed. Their cases will be examined on an individual basis to determine if any have valid fears of persecution on return to Ethiopia. The screening exercise will start in November in Um Gulja, Um Rakuba and Tenedba refugee camps and is expected to last one month.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 camp residents have registered for voluntary repatriation. That figure is expected to rise following the launch of a mass information campaign by Ethiopian officials and UNHCR this week. The campaign will explain the options available to refugees and describing current conditions in Ethiopia. A voluntary repatriation operation will begin in December. UNHCR assistance to the camps and urban centres will cease at the end of the year.
This document is intended for public information purposes only. It is not an official UN document.