AFRICA/D.CONGO - Dramatic increase in refugee families making their own way home to south Kivu

Rome (Fides Service) - Since the end of the school year in refugee camps in west Tanzania growing numbers of Congolese refugees are making their own way home to the south Kivu region of Democratic Congo without the assistance of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees UNHCR.
In camps in Tanzania there are about 153,000 refugees from D. Congo. Whereas before the number coming back to South Kivu each month had not exceeded 1,100 - and in some months was as few as 368 - last week in just two days, more than 200 refugees landed on one beach alone in Uvira, one of the larger towns in the region.
This dramatic increase in returnees is a consequence of increasing confidence in the peace process in this region unstable for so long but also of the fact that assistance in camps in Tanzania has diminished.
Most refugees buy perilous passage on overloaded, rickety open wooden boats for US$10 per person - a huge sum of money for them. The journey from Tanzania across Lake Tanganyika to beaches and ports on the Congolese side, such as Uvira and Baraka, takes 15 hours, done at night to avoid Tanzanian authorities. Although UNHCR is not helping them leave, once they are in DRC, the agency is providing trucks to drop them off in their home villages.
At the end of last week UNHCR trucks dropped off 213 people half of them children, at their villages along the Uvira - Fizi road, 131 south of Uvira.
The area of Fizi, in south Kivu, was the front line in many conflicts since 1996 and was suffered enormous damage. In some villages not a house was left standing but returnees find room with relations and former neighbours. (AP) (26/7/2005 Agenzia Fides; Righe:25; Parole:298)