DR CONGO: MORE THAN 30,000 FLEE NEW ATTACKS BY SPLINTERED REBEL FACTIONS

Even as some armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are being contained through peace pacts and military action, new fighting between other militias has driven more than 30,000 people from their homes, the United Nations refugee agency said today.

"The latest flare-up threatens to reverse the considerable progress made in the repatriation and resettlement of thousands of Congolese affected by previous conflicts in the area," William Spindler, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said in Geneva.

On 31 March, a group calling itself the Popular Front for Justice in the Congo (FPJC) attacked villages in the Ituri district between 50 and 80 kilometres south-east of Bunia, the administrative capital.

A few days later, on 2 April, the self-styled Revolutionary Front for Peace in the Ituri (FPRI) launched a counter attack in the area, UNHCR said.

According to the agency, in September 2008 FPJC splintered from the FPRI, a notorious group which has refused to participate in the peace process and has been blamed for major human rights violations in Ituri.

Many of the newly displaced include persons who were uprooted in raids mounted by the FRPI in 2006 in Ituri district and who were assisted to return to their homes by UNHCR in late 2006, Mr. Spindler said.

The eastern provinces of DRC have recently witnessed months of fierce fighting involving Government forces (FARDC) and various militia groups, displacing some 250,000 civilians, on top of 800,000 uprooted in earlier violence.

Last month, however, the Government and the National Congress for People's Defence (CNDP), one of the main combatants in the fighting, signed a peace accord.

Meanwhile, DRC and Rwanda launched a joint military operation to root out the mainly Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) from the east. A similar endeavour is under way in Haut Uélé province by Congolese and Ugandan forces to end the threat of the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in DRC.

Despite these efforts, in his latest report on the DRC, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls the situation in the east "fluid and volatile," partly because of the multiplicity of armed groups, requiring continued international attention.
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OVER 40,000 DISPLACED SOMALIS RETURN TO CAPITAL DESPITE CLASHES, SAYS UN AGENCY

OVER 40,000 DISPLACED SOMALIS RETURN TO CAPITAL DESPITE CLASHES, SAYS UN AGENCY
New York, Feb 27 2009 10:00AM

Although the Somali capital is witnessing some of the worst clashes in months, more than 40,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have returned to Mogadishu in the last six weeks, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) reported today.

The violence has led to civilian casualties and the agency is currently assessing the scale of displacement caused by this latest round of fighting, spokesperson William Spindler told reporters in Geneva.

"UNHCR is not encouraging returns to Mogadishu at this juncture, as the security situation is volatile and the conditions are certainly not conducive," he said, noting that there is limited access to basic services and very few international aid agencies on the ground due to the violence.

"Nevertheless, we are preparing to help returnees or those who wish to return in the near future, in the hope that the security situation will improve," Mr. Spindler said.

There are some 1.3 million Somalis uprooted within their own country, while last year alone, 100,000 people fled to neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen, and the total number of Somali refugees in asylum countries numbers nearly 450,000.

The majority of the IDPs who have recently returned to Mogadihsu have come from the southern and central regions, which have faced a combination of renewed conflict and severe drought.

Many are returning as complete families, while some are heads of households who have left their relatives behind in camps who have gone to the capital to check on their properties. The returnees are going back to neighbourhoods in northern Mogadishu that are virtually empty after two years of conflict.

Somalia, which has been beset by factional fighting and has not had a functioning central government since 1991, witnessed several encouraging developments over the past month, including the election of the country's new President and the creation of an enlarged Parliament.
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