PRESS BRIEFING BY UNICEF ON EASTERN ZAIRE

15 April 1997

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNICEF ON EASTERN ZAIRE

19970415 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

At a Headquarters press conference this afternoon, the Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and former coordinator for UNICEF's international study on the "Impact of War on Children", Stephen Lewis, briefed correspondents on his recent trip to eastern Zaire, where "Kilometre 41" held "the greatest concentration of human desolation and numbers".

After spending time in Goma with senior members of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo/Zaire (ADFL), the Governor of Kisangani, and various field officers and medical personnel, Mr. Lewis yesterday reported his findings to the Joint United Nations/Organization of African Unity (OAU) Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, Mohamed Sahnoun. The solidarity and coordination among the United Nations agencies and the non-governmental officers in the field was "really something to observe", with remarkably talented and able people in the field handling what was without question a very, very difficult situation.

The first group of people out had been the internally displaced, he said. One of the conditions of the Alliance was that the local populations, as well as the refugee populations, be dealt with. The next group would be the unaccompanied children. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) guaranteed him that they would begin to move the children by the end of the week, and hoped to be able to move them all within one month.

Mr. Lewis said there were some 630 fully unaccompanied children -- with no apparent relationships -- even in an extended family. There were more than 2,000 unaccompanied children living in foster families of the Rwandese who had trekked 1,000 kilometres or more. That, in itself, was a commentary on the capacity of human beings to extend themselves to children. Those families had truly suffered over the course of the last months and years. Yet, upon seeing children wandering alone through the forest, they had taken them in.

There were some 600 known children with Zairian families, he said. Overall, it was anticipated that some 5,000 children needed repatriation. That process, which would conclude with the massive exodus of large numbers of adult refugees, was "really complex". The refugees were not easily accessible and with the rainy season upon them the area was a virtual swamp. The Zaire- Congo River had to be crossed and there was only one ferry, which had just one engine working. A ferry of the World Food Programme (WFP) was due to arrive, along with some hoped for motorized rafts from Belgium.

"The children are in extremely rough shape", he said. At Kilometre 41, several hundred children were divided into two groups -- one group had received some physical and emotional rehabilitation, the other cluster was very, very sick. The illnesses ranged from dysentery to malaria and acute respiratory infections. There were doctors from Médecins sans Frontières, and much was being done to attend to them. Even those children considered to be slightly better off were in a "dreadful psychological state". He had seldom witnessed such a thing, and his experience with refugees dated back to the conflict in Biafra in the 1960s.

"The children are sitting almost lifelessly", he continued, "communicating not at all, looking vacantly out towards the world". The silence was "eerie", since there were very few situations where 80 to 100 children were together and "you don't hear laughter, you don't hear crying, you don't hear sounds of any activity". Some of the children had been given to aid workers from the arms of mothers who lay dying. He met a 15-year old girl who had been looking after four siblings for six months during the course of the trek through the jungle, without parents anywhere in sight. Others were exhausted and near death. The 360 children in the transit camp in Goma were in better shape. It was a lively, throbbing, vital place as they anticipated their return. But, in Kisangani, there was a "pall of passivity and desolation".

An earnest effort was under way to trace the identities of the children and begin the process of reunification, he said. The UNICEF and Save the Children hoped to reunite between 60 and 70 per cent of the children, even before the bulk of them started moving. Names were being called on bullhorns throughout the various encampments, and posted in a particular tent. Photos were being used where possible, along with daily broadcasts, in a desperate effort to reunify families before further unsettlement began. Many youngsters were separated from parents and from extended families during the most recent trek. It might, therefore, be possible to reunite them. The children would be transported to the Goma transit centre, which could take up to 1,000 children or more, and moved to Rwanda as quickly as possible.

It was believed that most of the people who were active in the genocide were massed at the Angolan border and might be crossing that border, he said. However, that was not compromising the repatriation of refugees from Kisangani. The Alliance and the UNHCR leadership said that what had happened to the so-called Congo-Zaire region had not happened solely since the 1994 refugee crisis, but was the product of a particular rule of 32 years. They hoped that the international community and the United Nations, in particular, would give considerable social and economic support to all of Zaire after the refugee crisis abated in approximately three to four months.

Opening the question-and-answer session, a correspondent asked about the future of the refugee children. Mr. Lewis said UNICEF and the non- governmental organizations would work hard to rehabilitate them, both physically and emotionally. There was a fairly sophisticated series of "psycho-social interventions" in place. And, they would try to follow the children back to their home communities, thereby maintaining contact and security.

To a question about how long the children would stay in the Goma transit camps and whether arrangements had been made for their return to Rwanda, Mr. Lewis said the Goma transit camp was virtually on the border with the entry point into Rwanda. The children would be transported by trucks. Some would stay only a couple of days; others, two or three weeks, depending on their physical and emotional condition.

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Asked why the Rwandans did not want the refugees to go to Kigali directly, Mr. Lewis said he believed the Rwandans wanted to make sure that everyone was evaluated carefully, in the context of what had happened in 1994. So far, no prohibitions or obstacles had been presented, but they did want to scrutinize the people from this group of refugees, which had been trekking for a long time.

Regarding the massing at the Angolan border of those people believed to have been active in the genocide, a correspondent asked whether they were there because they had nowhere else to go, or whether they were aiming to play a role in Angola. Mr. Lewis said it was the conventional wisdom that a significant number of those who might have been involved in the genocide of 1994 had found their way to the Angolan border. That was probably why the UNHCR did not feel compromised in moving everyone to Goma.

To a follow-up question about the number of refugees at the Angolan border and their plans for crossing into the area of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Mr. Lewis confirmed that those were UNITA areas across the border and the speculation was that 10,000 to 12,000 people were amassed there. Asked if there were indications that they were armed to fight with UNITA, Mr. Lewis said no, not that he had heard.

In light of the criticism of the United Nations by human rights groups concerning the involuntary return of Rwandan refugees, a correspondent asked if that was the case with Zaire, or whether it was true that Zairians wished to stay because they believed that things were going to be better than in the surrounding areas. Mr. Lewis said that it was often self-righteous of some of the human rights agencies to go after the UNHCR on questions of repatriation. The UNHCR, like many United Nations agencies, was in a tremendously difficult situation, one which the international community had not made easy to solve.

He said it was difficult to separate those who might have been involved in the genocide from those who were genuine refugees, although everyone conceded that repatriation must be voluntary. He had not met any refugee who

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was reluctant to return. Rather, he had the feeling of their "very strong wish to return". So, it was not the same as the situation in the United Republic of Tanzania, where refugees who had actually left the camp and were going in one direction, were brought back to go in the direction of Rwanda. In eastern Zaire, one had the sense of "a population overwhelmed by its own collective misery".

Concerning the role in general of the OAU, he said it was appropriately peace-keeping and negotiating. The fact that Mr. Sahnoun was a representative of both the United Nations and the OAU made good sense. Heaven and earth would have to be moved to resolve the situation before more lives were lost and before the conflict further unsettled Zaire. That was obviously very difficult and they were not filled with self-delusion. He added that "if Burundi is difficult to resolve, then God knows Zaire is difficult to resolve, where you've got a rebel army that clearly was not meeting much resistance and has its eyes on government".

Asked about Rwanda's ability to absorb some 100,000 people in a matter of weeks, Mr. Lewis said Rwanda had absorbed more than 1 million people in a matter of months. It was almost inconceivable that any country with a relatively small population could do that and do it in a way that was generally applauded by the international community. It was quite an astonishing feat and instilled confidence that the next 100,000 people would be absorbed in a reasonable fashion. It was not likely to be the last group of refugees to be returned. More groups of refugees and internally displaced persons were suddenly emerging from the forest -- sometimes in numbers as large as 6,000.

Mr. Lewis added that Zaire was a country with enormous wealth -- diamonds, gold, copper. If the economic and social infrastructure was put in place and if a democratic and broadly representative regime emerged, Zaire had the opportunity for a remarkable revival. The looting that had taken place, even in a hospital in Kisangani -- where every single bed, wire, pencil and paper were gone -- gave some indication of the nature of the reconstruction required. The United Nations and the international community must help make it possible. "That will certainly be our objective for the children of the future Zaire", he concluded.

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