MANOAH ESIPISU, Lusaka | Wednesday 3.35pm.
THE United Nations refugee agency on Wednesday lambasted the 14 members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for rejecting refugees from outside the region.
”There is a tendency within SADC of not accepting refugees from outside the region. That is unacceptable,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) southern Africa Director Nicolas Bwakira told a news conference.
Bwakira was in Lusaka, accompanying UNHCR head Sadako Ogata on a mission to evacuate thousands of sick and hungry Angolan refugees from the western Zambia border post of Kalabo, where they faced floods, to a settlement farther inland.
He gave no specific examples, but said UNHCR was working with SADC on a plan to deal with the problem.
Most SADC countries bar refugees from West Africa and the Horn of Africa.
Bwakira also spoke strongly against other unidentified African countries that enforced laws keeping refugees inside designated camps where they could not earn a living.
He said Zambia was an exception to those tendencies. It hosts 216783 refugees, of whom at least 171760 are Angolans who fled fighting between government troops and Unita rebels.
The UNHCR says 21000 refugees have entered Zambia from Angola since October with 12,000 crossing in January alone.
The Angola conflict, Africa’s longest-running war, has killed more than a million people, or 10% of Angola’s population of 12 million, displaced a further 50% and driven 500000 across the borders into neighbouring countries. — Reuters