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Refugee return is the spark of hope in the Great Lakes
6 Jan 2006 The Democratic Republic of the Congo is currently at the centre of various refugee return movements. Congolese refugees are returning home to eastern DRC from Tanzania, while Rwandan refugees are going back home to Rwanda after spending years in the forests of the Kivu provinces. And, those are just the major repatriation operations. -
Teenagers celebrate New Year in Burundi after returning home from Rwanda
3 Jan 2006 Two teenage Burundian refugees are celebrating the New Year back home in Burundi with their families after returning from half a year unaccompanied in exile in Rwanda. -
Rwandan refugees in Malawi encouraged to return after 'go-and-see' visit
28 Dec 2005 Josephine, a Rwandan refugee living in Malawi, recently made a brief and emotional return to Rwanda. She was on a UNHCR-organized "go-and-see" visit designed to give her and other refugees still in Malawi a clearer picture of what life is really like at home, 11 years after the genocide and civil war that caused them to flee. -
Pontoons loaned by Belgian government speed up returns from Tanzania to DRC
1 Dec 2005 The Belgian government's loan of six pontoons - that help refugees board a ship to cross Lake Tanganyika - has made it possible for UNHCR to double the number of returns every week from Tanzania to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. -
Refugees cook up appreciation for the environment in Rwanda
14 Nov 2005 During a recent Environment Week ceremony in Kiziba Camp in Rwanda, Congolese refugees were given a Blind Taste Test to see if they preferred beans and corn cooked over traditional open wood fires to those brewed up on new environmentally-friendly stoves. There was no clear winner - which in itself was a victory for the new stoves which consume 20 percent less fuel. -
New repatriation programme launched, as ferry takes Congolese home to South Kivu
11 Nov 2005 A group of some 500 Congolese returned this week by ferry to their home province of South Kivu, where they were welcomed by a jubilant crowd, as the UN refugee agency followed up a series of successful pilot operations by launching its full organized repatriation programme from Tanzania. -
Funding crisis threatens return hopes of thousands of Burundian refugees
28 Oct 2005 The UN refugee agency warned on Friday it will have to reduce or even suspend its biggest voluntary repatriation in Africa unless it quickly receives the money it has been calling for to help hundreds of thousands of Burundian refugees return home. -
Refugee 'special envoy' checks out situation back home in Burundi
27 Oct 2005 Thirty-three years after fleeing war in Burundi, Joyce Uwimana is making a brief trip home - one of ten refugees chosen as "special envoys" by thousands of her compatriots in Tanzania who are now eagerly awaiting her appraisal of what life is like in their homeland. -
Trial run paves way for major new repatriation in Africa back to DRC
14 Oct 2005 The UN refugee agency is about to launch a major new repatriation in Africa that could help up to 150,000 Congolese refugees in Tanzania return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During a trial run this week, some 280 refugees were repatriated to South Kivu province.