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Refugees – 2000

An estimated 40,000 people had fled the Republic of Congo (ROC) as of 1999.¹ As soon as the accords were signed in November and December 1999, refugees started to return. In November 1999, 350 refugees who had returned to the ROC from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) went missing, or rather, were disappeared.² According to a news report, refugees started to return to the Pool region of the country.

Refugees started to return in trainloads: the first train brought some 2,300 refugees to the Pool region on 18 March 2000; some 1,800 refugees arrived in the Mindouli region on the second trainload on 26 March 2000.³ It was reported that the United Nations was trying to generate international support to meet the humanitarian needs of refugees.⁴ According to Muggah, the number of refugees declined to 12,340 in 2000.⁵

1. Robert Muggah, “The Anatomy of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration in the Republic of Congo,” Conflict, Security & Development, 4(1): 21-37 (2004): 22.
2. “Still in Search of Justice Ten Years since the Disappearances of Over 350 in Republic of Congo,” International Refugee Rights Initiative, Refugee Rights News 2009, accessed June 22, 2012, http://www.refugee-rights.org/Publications/RRN/2009/May/V5.I3.StillInSea….
3. “Thousands return to devastated Republic of Congo region,” Associated Press, March 23, 2000.
4. “End to civil war in Republic of Congo creates humanitarian crisis,” Associated Press, February 23, 2000.
5. Robert Muggah, “The Anatomy of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration in the Republic of Congo,” 22.