U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1999 - Democratic Republic of the Congo

Congo-Kinshasa (formerly Zaire) generated more than 135,000 refugees to eight neighboring countries at the end of 1998, including: approximately 60,000 in Tanzania, nearly 35,000 in Rwanda, some 12,000 in Zambia, about 10,000 in Angola, an estimated 6,000 in Uganda, about 5,000 in Central African Republic, some 5,000 in Burundi, and about 3,000 in Sudan.

An estimated 300,000 people were internally displaced within Congo-Kinshasa. Some sources estimated the number of displaced as high as a half-million.

Some 220,000 refugees from neighboring countries were in Congo Kinshasa at year's end: an estimated 140,000 from Angola, approximately 30,000 from Sudan, about 20,000 from Congo-Brazzaville, some 20,000 from Burundi, and about 10,000 from Uganda.

An estimated 30,000 or more Rwandans were in Congo-Kinshasa living in refugee-like circumstances. Their refugee status remained undetermined, pending authorities' assessment of their asylum claims.

Renewed warfare gripped Congo-Kinshasa during the final half of 1998, involving combatants from nine African countries and raising fears of a regional African war. New waves of Congolese refugees and displaced persons fled the violence.

Renewed War

The year began with hope that the new government of President Laurent Kabila, which took power in mid-1997 by ousting longtime President Mobutu Sese Seko after a seven-month civil war, would bring stability and accountable government to Congo-Kinshasa after three decades of neglect and misrule under Mobutu.

Kabila's young government received mixed reactions from Congolese citizens and the international community in the first half of 1998. The government received credit for stabilizing inflation, reducing petty corruption, improving security in urban areas, and facilitating development projects in localities long ignored by the national government.

The Kabila regime, however, received widespread criticism for suspending political parties, failing to establish a functioning judiciary system, and restricting the work of journalists, human rights organizations, and local civic organizations.

During 1997 and early 1998, the Kabila government received strong diplomatic and military support from Rwanda, including joint military operations with Rwandan soldiers along Congo's eastern border, and the appointment of a Rwandan as head of the Congolese army. Despite relative calm in most of the country during early 1998, eastern Congo-Kinshasa continued to suffer outbreaks of violence caused by ethnic tensions, as well as armed insurgencies by Rwandan Hutu guerrillas and local Congolese militia known as Mai-Mai.

The political and military situation changed dramatically in August 1998 when Kabila's allies – Rwanda and Uganda – invaded Congo and launched a war to overthrow the Kabila government. Rwandan officials charged that policies the Kabila government pursued in eastern Congo threatened Rwanda's national security, and that Kabila's government was secretly training Rwandan Hutu insurgents who had waged genocide in Rwanda.

Rwandan and Ugandan troops, joined by disaffected Congolese soldiers and some Congolese civilians, rapidly seized key towns in eastern Congo and nearly captured Kinshasa, the capital, in the first month of the war. U.S. embassy officials evacuated from Kinshasa in mid-August, closing the embassy.

By September, the war in Congo-Kinshasa involved government troops from at least nine African countries, plus combatants linked to seven or more insurgent groups based in central Africa. One news report described the conflict as "a continent-wide free-for-all." Some international observers compared the conflict to an African version of World War I. The war "is one of the worst conflicts in the world today," a U.S. State Department official stated in September.

Allied with the Congo-Kinshasa government forces were government troops from Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Sudan, and Chad. Congolese officials also enlisted the help of armed Rwandan Hutu extremists who fled Rwanda after committing genocide in 1994. Fighting against the Kabila government were government troops from Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, as well as a Congolese rebel coalition known as the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD).

The RCD and its allies captured additional strategic towns in eastern and central Congo-Kinshasa in October and November. By year's end, the Kabila government had lost control of at least one-third of the country. Mediation efforts by international diplomats, including U.S. officials, failed. "There is no evident will to end the war," a group of Congolese religious leaders stated in October.

No reliable estimates existed of the death toll among combatants and civilians. Most battles and massacres occurred at sites inaccessible to journalists and other international witnesses. Combatants on all sides reportedly committed atrocities.

Congolese government forces and civilian mobs responded to attacks on Kinshasa in August by slaying many ethnic Tutsi civilians and others suspected of aiding the attackers. Government authorities detained some 700 Tutsi civilian residents through the end of the year. "There were credible reports of beatings, rapes, and extrajudicial killings" of Tutsi detainees, a U.S. government human rights assessment charged.

Government troops and their supporters allegedly killed large numbers of Tutsi civilians in the key northern city of Kisangani before it fell to attackers in August. Refugees fleeing eastern Congo charged that combatants allied with the Congolese government killed many Tutsi Banyamulenge residents in the town of Moba, in Katanga Province, in September.

Rwandan soldiers and Congolese rebel troops allegedly massacred more than 1,000 people in six major incidents during the war, according to a U.S. government report. Other suspected rebel atrocities generally remained unreported. "Rwandan army per-sonnel...reportedly committed many serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killing, torture, and rape," a human rights report by the U.S. government stated.

Some international aid workers, however, reported that although "both sides are killing populations," human rights abuses were less pervasive than commonly believed. "The picture painted by local human rights advocates in North Kivu (a province in northeast Congo-Kinshasa) is less dramatic than what has been portrayed externally," a UN inter-agency team reported after an assessment trip in November. "The assertion that the populations of North Kivu are 'falling prey to terror and general exactions' is not corroborated by local human rights leaders... Killings are an outcome ofŠconfrontations between insurgent groups and the rebels. In these instances, both sides are killing populationsŠ [But] massacres on a large-scaleŠhave not occurred in North Kivu." Massacres in South Kivu Province, however, reportedly continued through the end of the year.

As the year ended, anti-Kabila forces remained on the offensive in northern, central, and southern areas of the country. Many Congolese – including many who were normally opposed to the Kabila government's domestic policies – viewed the conflict not as a civil war but primarily as an invasion by Rwanda.

Population Movements – Early 1998

Congo- Kinshasa experienced two vastly different situations during 1998.

Early in the year, large numbers of people continued to reintegrate into their home communities after the civil war of 1996-97. Tensions and insecurity in eastern Congo-Kinshasa forced some families to remain uprooted. After war broke out again in the second half of 1998, large numbers of people again fled their homes for varying periods.

During the first half of the year, significant population displacement occurred only in the two eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu. An estimated 20,000 to 40,000 people remained uprooted in North Kivu Province because of local ethnic hostilities, as well as conflict between the Rwandan military that patrolled the area and Rwandan guerrillas who used eastern Congo-Kinshasa as a base. Some 30,000 persons remained internally displaced in South Kivu Province, on the eastern edge of the country, because of ethnic tensions and occasional violence. Small numbers of Congolese fled from South Kivu Province to neighboring Burundi early in the year.

Approximately 1,500 unaccompanied children remained displaced early in the year at a camp in the city of Kisangani, in north central Congo-Kinshasa. Some 360 children in the camp died of cholera and dysentery before government authorities agreed to close the camp and transfer the children to different locations in February. Government officials claimed the children were Mai-Mai combatants.

An estimated 50,000 Congolese refugees who had fled the country in previous years repatriated to Congo-Kinshasa during the first half of 1998, primarily from Tanzania and Uganda. UNHCR provided reintegration assistance, including food aid, farm tools, seeds, and medical care.

Government officials' distrust of UN agencies posed obstacles to humanitarian relief. Even before war re-ignited in mid-1998, UNHCR encountered serious difficulties in Congo-Kinshasa because of the Congolese government's treatment of Rwandan refugees and its interference in UNHCR operations. [See below, "Asylum Seekers From Rwanda."]

Congolese government officials repeatedly accused UNHCR in 1997 and early 1998 of fomenting instability in eastern regions of the country. The head of UNHCR, Sadako Ogata, traveled to Congo-Kinshasa in February in an effort to improve relations between UNHCR and the government.

Uprooted Congolese – Second Half of 1998

The outbreak of renewed war in Congo-Kinshasa in August uprooted hundreds of thousands of people, some for a few days, others for the rest of the year. At year's end, displacement persisted primarily in the eastern one-third of the country.

Although an estimated 300,000 persons were internally displaced at year's end and some 130,000 were refugees in neighboring countries, some aid workers estimated that 80 percent of the population in some eastern regions – a million or more people – might have fled their homes temporarily for several days at different times during the year. Such estimates were impossible to confirm because much of the country remained inaccessible to local and international aid workers.

"Because of the security situation, [there are] no reliable figures for internally displaced persons" in Congo-Kinshasa, UNHCR reported in November.

At least 30,000 Congolese fled the country and became refugees in Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda, Zambia, and Central African Republic. Many of the estimated 20,000 people who fled to Tanzania by boat across Lake Tanganyika had only recently repatriated to Congo-Kinshasa. Combatants in South Kivu Province reportedly blocked many families from fleeing to Tanzania.

Thousands of residents of North Kivu Province fled into the major eastern town of Goma, either to escape attacks by Rwandan Hutu extremists based nearby, or to avoid confrontations between the Rwandan extremists and RCD forces. The town of Uvira, in South Kivu Province, held some 10,000 displaced people by October, many of them "destitute," according to a UN assessment. The strategic eastern town of Kindu, located 1,200 km (about 750 miles) east of Kinshasa, was reported to be virtually empty when anti-government forces seized the town in October.

Although the most significant displacement occurred primarily in the eastern one-third of the country, the war caused temporary flight in other areas. Thousands of families fled their homes on the outskirts of Kinshasa when fighting raged there in August. Battles for control of Kisangani, ultimately won by anti-government troops, caused short-term population upheavals there.

A UN humanitarian assessment in northern Congo-Kinshasa in December found that some families remained displaced, but most had either returned home or had access to their houses during daylight hours. Most uprooted people near Kisangani, for example, were returning home by December but remained vulnerable to looting and occasional attacks. In most areas of the country, where most homes and other buildings remained standing, families returned quickly.

Humanitarian Conditions

Decades of corruption and neglect during the Mobutu years left much of Congo-Kinshasa impoverished even in normal times. The onset of renewed war in 1998 aggravated already precarious humanitarian conditions for all Congolese, whether displaced or not.

"Misery increases constantly," local religious leaders in eastern Congo-Kinshasa warned in October. "Economic and social infrastructures are destroyed. Farmers have worked for nothing. Cattle farms are being destroyed. Schools no longer function. Economic and commercial activities regressŠ. The people's suffering is exacerbated and cruelly prolonged by this war."

For the most part, Congolese accustomed to difficult circumstances managed to cope despite the war. UN aid officials stated that humanitarian conditions in the Kisangani area of northern Congo-Kinshasa in December were difficult, but were "not an acute emergency."

Insecurity and administrative restrictions hampered international aid officials' access to most areas of the country during the last half of the year. UN agencies evacuated their international personnel from eastern Congo-Kinshasa in August. Local Congolese NGOs continued to monitor humanitarian needs but often lacked resources to mount sustained programs.

International relief organizations suffered massive looting in eastern regions because of the war. NGOs and UN agencies reported that combatants stole virtually all aid vehicles and relief equipment in parts of South Kivu Province. UNICEF reported losing millions of dollars of equipment. An inter-agency NGO assessment study suggested that "the international community was specifically targeted" for theft. Aid agencies threatened to suspend all humanitarian operations indefinitely in South Kivu Province until combatants returned their stolen property. Few vehicles were recovered, however.

Health workers in Kinshasa reported increased malnutrition as food prices soared because of the war. An inter-agency assessment in late 1998 estimated that 230,000 persons required food aid in eastern regions, where insecurity was most pervasive and population displacement was greatest.

Combatants destroyed or looted about one-third of all health clinics in eastern Congo-Kinshasa. A cholera epidemic in South Kivu Province killed 1,300 people by November. "The ability of the humanitarian [agencies] to address the humanitarian crisis remains limited," a UN sponsored assessment concluded in November.

Refugees from Angola

Tens of thousands of new Angolan refugees arrived in Congo-Kinshasa during 1998, fleeing renewed civil war in Angola. They joined an estimated 100,000 Angolan refugees who had fled to Congo-Kinshasa in previous years, including many "old caseload" Angolan refugees who had lived in CongoKinshasa for decades and were well-integrated into local communities.

UNHCR gave some new arrivals a one-month food supply. Warfare in Congo-Kinshasa, however, prevented assistance from reaching many Angolans during the second half of the year. Most Angolan refugees from previous years were largely self-sufficient and had no regular contact with UNHCR or aid agencies.

Most Angolans lived in three regions. About 80,000 – including an estimated 40,000 new arrivals – resided in Bas Congo Province in the southwestern corner of the country. Some 40,000 – including nearly 20,000 recent arrivals – lived in three settlements in Shaba Province, where they received medical and educational assistance prior to the Congolese war. Nearly 15,000 lived in Bandundu Province, in western Congo-Kinshasa.

Some 15,000 Angolan refugees in Congo-Kinshasa repatriated in early 1998 prior to the outbreak of Angola's war, according to UNHCR.

Refugees from Sudan

Most of the estimated 30,000 Sudanese refugees in Congo-Kinshasa arrived in 1990-91 because of ongoing civil war in their own country. They lived in a remote corner of northeastern Congo-Kinshasa, where poor roads and vast distances hampered assistance efforts throughout the 1990s. Many of the refugees engaged in farming and were nearly self sufficient.

Some 15,000 or more Sudanese refugees suddenly returned to Sudan in October 1998 under controversial circumstances. UNHCR charged that rebel Sudanese soldiers entered Dungu refugee camp, located near the Congo-Kinshasa border with Sudan, and forced refugees to return to Sudan. The rebel soldiers allegedly looted UNHCR offices and local homes in the process. Other Sudanese refugees reportedly fled to different locations in Congo-Kinshasa to avoid forcible repatriation.

Other aid workers, however, offered a different reason for the sudden repatriation: that many Sudanese refugees repatriated voluntarily to escape insecurity caused by Congo-Kinshasa's war. UNHCR staff had already left the area for similar reasons. Sudanese rebels allegedly entered Congo-Kinshasa at the refugees' request to protect them during their trek to the border, according to some aid workers based in Sudan.

The Congolese war prevented UNHCR from re-establishing contact with the remaining Sudanese refugee population by year's end.

Refugees from Congo-Brazzaville

Some 20,000 to 40,000 refugees from Congo-Brazzaville were in Congo Kinshasa at the start of 1998. They fled civil war in their own country. Many lived at Kinkole camp in the vicinity of Kinshasa. Thousands of others lived with friends or relatives in Kinshasa.

Virtually all the refugees repatriated during the first half of 1998, and Kinkole camp closed. Some refugees repatriated on their own; others received UNHCR transportation and food assistance.

New violence in Congo-Brazzaville in late 1998 pushed an estimated 20,000 new refugees into Congo-Kinshasa, as well as thousands of Kinshasa residents who had been working or visiting in Brazzaville. UNHCR was assessing whether to establish a new refugee camp near Kinshasa as the year ended.

Refugees from Burundi

An estimated 20,000 Burundian refugees were in Congo-Kinshasa at the end of 1998, but their exact number and condition were impossible to know. Most lived on their own and purposely maintained low visibility for their own protection.

About 600 lived in a camp in the city of Mbuji-Mayi, in central Kasai Province. Some 8,000 to 20,000 reportedly lived in or near the town of Uvira, in South Kivu Province.

Several thousand new Burundian refugees fled to Congo-Kinshasa during the year because of civil war in their own country. Some arrived malnourished and suffering wounds. Up to 10,000 others repatriated to Burundi during the year, largely because of insecurity caused by Congo Kinshasa's war.

A UNHCR official described the regular arrival and departure of Burundian refugees in Congo-Kinshasa as "a constant revolving door."

Local Congolese authorities in South Kivu Province forcibly expelled some 250 to 500 Burundian and Rwandan refugees to Burundi in April. Local officials reportedly commandeered trucks from an international relief organization to facilitate the expulsion. Congolese citizens were mistakenly expelled at the same time, according to reports. National government officials belatedly intervened to halt the forced repatriations, UNHCR reported.

Refugees from Uganda

An estimated 10,000 Ugandan refugees remained in Congo-Kinshasa at year's end. Some had fled their country in the 1980s, and others during 1997-98 because of an insurgency in southwest Uganda.

During 1998, Ugandan insurgents operating in the area reportedly killed three refugees and abducted 100 in an attack on a refugee camp eight km (five miles) from the Ugandan border.

Some 3,000 Ugandan refugees requested UNHCR assistance to repatriate. UNHCR and the governments of Uganda and Congo-Kinshasa signed a three-way agreement in April to lay the groundwork for repatriation. Although no organized repatriation occurred, some Ugandan refugees might have chosen to repatriate spontaneously to escape the war in Congo-Kinshasa.

Asylum Seekers from Rwanda

More than a million Rwandan refugees fled to Congo-Kinshasa in 1994, following a genocide and civil war in their own country.

The overwhelming majority of the refugees were ethnic Hutu. Their extremist leaders had committed genocide in Rwanda against ethnic Tutsi. Many Rwandans fled to Congo-Kinshasa fearing retribution for the genocide, in which some of them participated. Others were forced to flee to Congo-Kinshasa by Hutu extremist leaders who directed the population to follow them into exile. The main perpetrators of the genocide – former Rwandan politicians, soldiers, and militia members – remained among the refugees.

Although a small percentage of the refugees repatriated to Rwanda during 1994-96, the overwhelming majority were still living in refugee camps in eastern Congo-Kinshasa (then called Zaire) when Congo's first round of civil war erupted in late 1996. The camps came under attack by Congolese rebels and Rwandan soldiers, who regarded the camps as military bases.

The violence resulted in an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 refugees returning to Rwanda in the final weeks of 1996. More than 200,000 refugees headed in the opposite direction, deeper into forest areas of Congo-Kinshasa. Former Rwandan soldiers and armed militia members remained among them and continued to receive arms shipments, according to UN reports.

During 1997, Rwandan refugees continued to flee across the breadth of Congo-Kinshasa in an effort to escape advancing Rwandan troops. Thousands are believed to have died of disease, malnutrition, and massacres by Rwandan government soldiers supporting Congolese rebels at that time. The plight of Rwandan refugees was "one of the worst dramas of our times," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata.

When Congo-Kinshasa's first civil war ended in mid-1997, international pressure to aid, protect, and repatriate the Rwandan refugee population increased. UNHCR characterized the dangers facing the refugees as "the most pressing asylum issue" in the world. Nearly 200,000 Rwandans repatriated from Congo-Kinshasa during 1997. International officials and human rights advocates pressed for an investigation into the deaths of missing refugees. Officials of Congo's new government, strongly backed by Rwanda at that time, repeatedly blocked investigation efforts.

In the final months of 1997, UNHCR sharply criticized Congolese officials for forcibly expelling Rwandan refugees and failing to provide proper refugee protection. UNHCR announced that it would suspend its programs for Rwandan refugees because, the agency said, "the most basic conditions for protecting Rwandan refugeesŠhave ceased to exist." UNHCR stated that "our efforts to help these people has been frustrated at every turn." UNHCR's program suspension, however, was not total. UNHCR closed its office in the eastern town of Goma but continued to provide discrete repatriation assistance to Rwandan refugees found in eastern Congo-Kinshasa.

In 1998, an ongoing UN investigation into the deaths of Rwandan refugees during 1996-97 continued to encounter obstruction from Congolese government authorities. The UN withdrew its investigative team in April, citing "total lack of cooperation" from government officials.

When issuing the final report by the UN investigative team in June, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated that "the killings by ADFL (the Congolese rebel group during 1996-97) and its allies, including elements of the RPA (Rwandan Patriotic Army), constitute crimes against humanity, as does the denial of humanitarian assistance to Rwandan Hutu refugees."

The report concluded that Congolese rebel troops under RPA command acted with "intent to eliminate those Rwandan Hutus who had remained in Zaire."

Congolese government officials criticized the report and called on the UN to "purely and simply disown" the report's conclusions. The Rwandan government charged that the UN investigation displayed "a significant bias." Later in the year, however, after war erupted between Rwanda and Congo-Kinshasa, some Congolese authorities publicly asserted that the Rwandan army had massacred Rwandan refugees during 1996-97.

The number of Rwandan asylum seekers still in Congo-Kinshasa at the end of 1998 was uncertain. Many preferred for security reasons to live on their own, integrated into the local Congolese population in different areas of the country. UNHCR reported that it was assisting about 4,000. Local authorities in North Kivu Province estimated that 15,000 to 20,000 remained in that area; arranging their repatriation and separating them from combatants "was not going to be easy," a UN sponsored assessment team concluded in late 1998. Most sources assumed that 30,000 to 40,000 Rwandans remained in the country.

In addition to uncertainty about their numbers, the refugee status of most Rwandans remained undetermined. UNHCR and government officials were unable to conduct official interviews to determine which individuals had legitimate refugee claims, and which were disqualified from refugee status because of previous participation in the Rwandan genocide or current activity as combatants.

Pending individual determination of refugee status for Rwandans – undertaken in a number of neighboring countries – USCR lists the Rwandan population as living in refugee-like conditions.

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