[allAfrica.com]


Congo Refugees Flood Uganda

New Vision (Kampala)
January 14, 2001
Posted to the web January 14, 2001
Rwebishengo
Some 5,000 civilians fleeing bloody ethnic clashes in the eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo (RDC) have arrived in western Uganda, with harrowing stories
to tell.
The refugees are from the pastoralist Hema tribe, whose members have been
fighting the agriculturalist Lendu tribe over land disputes since 1998.
The recent clashes in DRC's Ituri province broke out on Sunday.
Although their disputes are longstanding, the ethnic conflict has intensified
during the country's two-and-a-half year civil war, which has provided a steady
flow of weapons into the region, and further ravaged a poor local economy.
Thousands of people have died and more than 100,000 have been displaced,
according to the United Nations.
The Hema who arrived this week in Uganda also drove some 15,000 long-horned
cattle into the plains of Rwebishengo in Uganda's Bundibugyo district,
officials there told AFP.
Many of the refugees fled fighting in the DRC border village of Ngabu, which
was attacked early Wednesday by a group of men armed with spears, arrows and
guns, they said.
The recent fighting, which has killed an unknown number of people, continued
until Thursday.
Some of the injured who crossed into Uganda were being treated in local
clinics.
At one such clinic in Rwebishengo, a 12-year-old boy lay on a pillow soaked
with blood from a machete wound on his head.
In the next room, an injured woman lay still after having lost four children
and her husband in the attack on Ngabu village.
One man described how a woman had a child strapped to her back snatched and
chopped with a machete.
Another man said he had seen two corpses on the ground with arrows sticking out
of them.
"The injured were hit with pangas (machetes) and arrows. There are six injured
here " said one of the clinic staff, Kwizera Wilberforce, carrying two arrows
pulled out of wounded bodies.
AFP

    [Click_here_for_current_screenings!]

    ===========================================================================
      Copyright © 2001 New Vision. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media
                                 (allAfrica.com).
    ===========================================================================