$70.5 MILLION NEEDED TO REPAIR DAMAGE BY RWANDAN REFUGEES

24 January 1996

Press Release
REF/1132

$70.5 MILLION NEEDED TO REPAIR DAMAGE BY RWANDAN REFUGEES

19960124 GENEVA, 24 January (UNHCR) -- The United Nations today proposed a $70.5 million programme to repair damage to the environment and infrastructure in countries hosting Rwandan refugees.

A package of projects was presented to a technical meeting of donors called by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A pledging conference is expected to convened later to raise funds for specific projects of interest to donors.

The proposed portfolio of projects worth $70.5 million was designed for rapid implementation over a short period and would complement projects already under way. They involve efforts to stop environmental damage, including an end to unregulated wood cutting by refugees outside the camp; reforestation; rehabilitation of roads, ports and communications facilities and sanitation, health and education services; and poverty alleviation and income generation activities.

Kamal Morjane, Director of the UNHCR Regional Bureau for Africa, expressed the hope that the international community will support the projects. He said such support would acknowledge the generosity and show appreciation for the hospitality extended to the refugees by the people of the countries of asylum over the past three years.

"The initiative is vital in the effort to help repair the ravages of a massive human tragedy which has affected the lives of many people, not only in Rwanda, but in neighbouring countries as well", said Alan Doss, Director of the UNDP European office.

Today's meeting implements one of the decisions taken during the Conference on Assistance to Refugees, Returnees and Displaced Persons in the Great Lakes region organized by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and UNHCR in Bujumbura in February 1995. The Bujumbura conference requested UNDP to prepare a programme, in collaboration with UNHCR, that addresses environmental damage caused by the influx of some 1.8 million Rwandan refugees in Zaire, United Republic of Tanzania and Burundi.

That meeting also called for the voluntary repatriation of about 1 million refugees in Zaire, nearly 600,000 in the United Republic of Tanzania and 152,000 in Burundi. However, the large majority of these refugees have not yet returned home.

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