RWANDA: UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES SADAKO OGATA VISITS CONGOLESE REFUGEE CAMPS IN BYUMBA

Record ID: 275345

  • Title: RWANDA: UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES SADAKO OGATA VISITS CONGOLESE REFUGEE CAMPS IN BYUMBA
  • Date: 17th June 2000
  • Summary: BYUMBA, RWANDA (JUNE 17, 2000) (REUTERS) 1. MV: BANNER AT CAMP ENTRANCE SAYING 'WELCOME SADAKO OGATA' 0.07 2. SCU: UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSION FOR REFUGEES (UNHCR) FLAG 0.10 3. WIDE OF THE CAMP 0.16 4. SV; ARMED RWANDAN SOLDIERS 0.21 5. VARIOUS OF CAMP AND REFUGEES (3 SHOTS) 0.35 6. VARIOUS YOUNG KIDS CHANTING AN
  • Embargoed: 2nd July 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BYUMBA, RWANDA
  • Country: Rwanda
  • Reuters ID: LVABPMFHROQLQM01OYAT7LUCLJBO
  • Story Text: The United Nations High Commissioner for refugees,
    Sadako Ogata has visited the Congolese refugee camp in Byumba,
    northern Rwanda.



    While about 60,000 Rwandan refugees still remain in
    neighbouring Congo, thousands of Congolese ethnic Tutsis found
    shelter in refugee camps set up by humanitarian agencies in
    Rwanda.

    Nearly two million Rwandan Hutus fled the tiny central
    African country after a Tutsi-led rebel army seized power and
    ended the 1994 slaughter, in which Hutu extremists massacred
    an estimated 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis.

    Most of the refugees returned in 1996 after Rwandan troops
    crossed into the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of
    the Congo, at the start of a rebellion there.

    UNHCR has spent around 200 million U.S. dollars over the
    last six years repatriating Rwandan refugees, large numbers of
    whom also fled to neighboring Tanzania and Burundi.

    Over 45,000 have been repatriated over the past year.

    The camp in Byumba was set up in January 1998 to provide
    shelter for over 10,000 Banyamulengues, ethnic Tutsis who have
    fled the Kivu Province driven out of their homes by an ethnic
    war raging in rebel-held areas of eastern Democratic Republic
    of Congo.

    Ogata, who is set to retire from the job as refugee chief
    later this year, has said that the refugee crises in Rwanda
    and the Balkans had been the two biggest challenges of her
    career, a U.N. official said.


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