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GENEVA - The United Nations appealed today for fresh funds to help nearly 100,000 Congolese refugees go home this year, but said continuing violence prevented returns to the eastern part of the former Zaire.
Some US$47 million ($69.47 million) of its US$62 million appeal is earmarked for the voluntary repatriation programme, with the remaining US$15 million aimed at providing aid to 1.1 million people uprooted within Democratic Republic of Congo.
There was a "window of opportunity" for mass returns due to relative stability following the inauguration of President Joseph Kabila who won the first democratic elections in four decades, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
Some 29,000 Congolese had returned home last year, it said.
"The international community has a unique opportunity here -- if we can maintain the momentum and show Congolese that they are not alone," Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement.
More than 400,000 Congolese still live in exile, most of them in neighbouring countries, the UNHCR said.
For now, Congolese refugees will return mainly from Tanzania, the Republic of Congo and Zambia, it said.
Fighting by armed groups in the volatile east remained a concern amid an environment of "widespread impunity" and very weak rule of law, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said.
"There are many places in the east, particularly, where we can't work and would not conduct returns," he told a briefing.
- REUTERS
