KINSHASA, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- The arrival of about 12,000 families in the last few months in the territory of Masis and Rutshuru, in the province of North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has aroused doubts about their origin and raised fear of infiltration of foreigners.
The authorities indicated that they may pose as Congolese refugees from Rwanda.
The coordinator of the national commission for refugees in North Kivu (CNR), Laingulia Njewa, told local radio this week that these people came in illegally through the border from Kibumba to around 20 km north of Goma along Ritshuru road.
Accompanied by their families and animals, they settled in a Congolese village and 80 percent of them said they came from refugee camps in Byumba and Kibuye in Rwanda, he pointed out.
Njewa asked the local population to be calm, pledging the government was thinking about the issue in order to identify these suspicious refugees, whose real figure had not yet been established.
The UNHCR also has doubt whether or not these people are Congolese refugees.
"We honestly do not know the history of these people. In any case, the majority did not have with them documents to prove that they were refugees and the authorities must now start the identification process to establish the origin of these people," Francesca Fontanini, administrator in charge of external relations of the UNHCR in the DRC said on Wednesday in Kinshasa after a mission in North Kivu.
"We compared the lists that the authorities gave us with our Rwandan UNHCR office, but they do not correspond with the names of the people who were in the Rwandan refugee camps. Therefore these people are not in our data base," Fontanini added.
"According to the UNHCR figures, today we still have 52,000 Congolese refugees living in Rwanda," she said.
During a press conference held on Thursday in Kinshasa, the Congolese minister for communication and media, Lambert Mende Omalanga, talked of some refugees coming from Rwanda through illegal routes, declaring that "the government was well aware of movements of people from Rwanda to the DRC."
"The DRC and Rwanda are having contacts over this issue and they are both monitoring the situation," he told reporters.
"What has happened was done in a more or less anarchical manner. But if they are Congolese, they have a right to stay in their country. If they are Congolese, we shall know them after verification. If they are foreigners, they will be repatriated to their country of origin," the Congolese government spokesman said.
Mende, who did not disclose the figure of illegal refugees, said it was difficult to establish the definite number of Congolese refugees in Rwanda by using only the UNHCR figures because the UNHCR only counts people who are living in camps.
"We know that there are refugees who are living with families. It's the work of the Congolese interior minister with his Rwandan counterpart and the UNHCR, which will begin this week. They will give us a report and in all honesty, we shall make this information public," he explained.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a national member of parliament from North Kivu expressed fear that the arrival of the refugees in the Congolese territories of Masisi and Rutshuru could become a new cause of tensions between Rwanda and the DRC.
"A number of these refugees are simply Rwandese nationals who will cause a lot of trouble when they will be told to go back to their country," he said.
He blamed the situation on the Rwandese government, indicating every time the DRC attempts to find peace, Kigali "provokes a situation that can lead to destabilization because it is aided by foreign powers."
The issue has led to a "sine die" of a meeting planned for Nov.23 between the UNHCR, Rwanda and the DRC on the repatriation of Congolese refugees.
The postponement of the tripartite meeting was confirmed on Wednesday by Fontanini.
"I think that the repatriation of Congolese refugees from Rwanda will begin next year," she declared.
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