afrol News, 9 January - Angola today airlifts its first badge of refugees from Zambia's Copperbelt provincial capital of Ndola. The Angolan flight boarded 116 refugees this morning and flew them to Luena, Angola's eastern central province of Moxico. The government of Angola bankrolled the cost of airlifting the refugees.

The refugees arrived home safely, with officials of International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and Angolan Ministry of Assistance and Social Reinsertion receiving at the airport where they got registered.

According to an IOM statement, the refugees were supplied with food from the UN agency WFP, non- food items such as construction material and farming instruments from UNHCR and mine awareness training and HIV/AIDS information from a partner NGO, "Enxame de Abelhas".

With assistance from Danish government, IOM had been able to hand out cash grant to each returning family to help them fund the last leg of their journey home. However, IOM said it needed US$ 2.5 million to provide returnees with income generating activities, such as agricultural work or the production of construction materials and other goods and services over the next two years.

Two other flights of refugees are scheduled to carry out similar mission today.

The country's more than decade of war had forced thousands of its citizens to flee to other countries. Over 70,000 Angolan refugees have been returned from Zambia since 2003 but several more are still there.

As Angola now is experiencing an economic boom due to peace, a growing oil production and high oil prices, reconstruction and mine clearing are going quickly ahead. However, most rural areas - from which most refugees originate - still have to see investments from the capital, Luanda, where most of the economic boom is experienced.

This new repatriation operation, which is due to run until the end of January, aims to assist some 3,000 Angolans refugees who are currently living in Zambia's northern Copperbelt province and who wish to return home under a joint voluntary repatriation programme run by IOM, UNHCR and the Angolan and Zambia governments.

By staff writer

© afrol News

Related pages and feature

Current afrol News Top Stories