Sudanese claim racist bans

A group of young Sudanese refugees in a central Queensland city say they are being victimised because of their race.

The men say since moving to Rockhampton for work, they have been banned from a shop, a bar and a nightclub.

They say the bans were imposed as a result of trouble caused some of their countrymen which had nothing to do with them, but the businesses involved stand by their actions and deny they have been racist.

Jacob Deleer, 23, is a Sudanese refugee who arrived in Rockhampton a couple of months ago to start a job at the meatworks.

He says he likes the work but not everyone in the city has been welcoming.

“When you go Friday night and you walk around in the street, you walk around from this club to that club or from that club to that club,” he said.

“There is a lot of people looking for trouble. Especially trying to fight me or something for no reason.”

He says his taunters also make abusive comments about his race and a few weeks ago he says he was banned from his local corner store.

“One day I walk into the shop and the shopkeeper telling me no, I can’t sell you smoke mate. You know, I can’t sell you anything in this shop and I say why?” he said.

“He said it was one of you yesterday come around here and urinated at the back of the shop and I say what do you mean, man. I don’t even know what you are talking about. I don’t even know who done that.”

But the store’s owner, Alan Longmore, says he was quite within his rights.

“I went outside to bring the signs in. There was a group of Sudanese people out the side of the shop and urinating against the shop wall,” he said.

“They were then told that until they cleaned up the mess, they would not be served in the shop.”

Mr Longmore says that almost two weeks later, a “token effort” was made to clean the store.

“Just some water was thrown against the wall and that was it,” he said.

Mr Longmore insists Mr Deleer was involved in the incident, but Mr Deleer insists it was a case of mistaken identity.

Mr Deeler says he has since been unfairly targeted again.

He says he has been banned from at least two bars and nightclubs, because one of his friends got into a fight one night, when he wasn’t even there.

“The security guy [was] telling me you guys are dangerous and you guys are always fighting and fighting and I said, you didn’t see me, you know my face. You seen me a couple of time ago coming in here,” he said.

“They said, yeah, I know you but I can’t let you in mate.”

But the owner of Rockhampton’s Heritage Hotel, one of the establishments in question, says no one would be banned solely for their race.

Will Fowles says that only people who specifically cause trouble in the venue are banned.

“I am aware that a number of people, if they have acted up in the venue, won’t be allowed back for a period of time at the discretion of management and staff,” he said.

Rockhampton’s Mayor Brad Carter is watching developments and says racism is unacceptable.

“We want an inclusive community, we are working hard to have a very inclusive community,” he said.

“I would be happy to become involved in these issues and allegations that have been raised to see what I can do to smooth the troubled waters, if in fact the waters are troubled.”

Source: ABC

Crisis, what crisis? India stays calm as refugees keep coming

There is a country where leaky boats full of Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers are turning up without triggering a political crisis.

In India more than 24,000 have arrived in the past three years, many by sea. Despite heavy naval patrolling of the narrow ocean channel that divides the countries, at least 1075 Sri Lankan Tamils have made it to India this year. Some put this year’s arrivals at more than 3700.

The public reaction is in stark contrast to the recent frenzy over boat people in Australia. The media have taken little notice of the boat arrivals and national politicians have been allowed to concentrate on other challenges.

Some in Australia have asked why Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka don’t just go the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, home to 60 million Tamil speakers. The answer is that more than 100,000 have done just that. About 73,000 of them live in special refugee camps funded and run by the Indian Government. Another 31,000 live in the community, mostly in cities such as Chennai.

India – where 800 million people live on less than $2 a day – does not encourage the flow of refugees from its small island neighbour. Even so they have been arriving in waves since the Tamil Tigers took up arms to fight for a separate homeland in north and east of Sri Lanka in the early 1980s. The war ended in May but refugees continue to arrive.

“It’s often older people and the unskilled who come here,” said a strategic analyst in Chennai, R. Hariharan, a retired colonel. “People who can’t afford to pay the huge sums its takes to get to Australia or Canada.”

There is sympathy for the refugees. In September the ruling party in Tamil Nadu passed a resolution calling on the national government to grant citizenship to all Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India. So far, New Delhi has shown no interest in the idea.

Not only Tamils seek sanctuary in India. The World Refugee Survey 2009, published by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, found 456,000 refugees and asylum seekers in India. That includes about 110,000 Tibetans including the spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. India also tolerates a huge number of Bangladeshis within its borders – many millions, by some estimates – although they are officially deemed illegal immigrants.

In neighbouring Pakistan, the numbers are even more confronting. Despite battling insurgency and economic collapse, Pakistan hosts nearly 2 million Afghan refugees. Tens of thousands of them have been allowed to set up businesses and make their home in Pakistan’s cities and towns while they wait for the United Nations to find them a new home.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Refugee stories: Both success and failure

Here are two refugee stories, says Joseph Nahas of United Africans of Utah: in the first, a woman is resettled to Utah and five years later she has become a U.S. citizen, can read and write in English, has a job and is planning to buy a house; in the second story, a woman is resettled to Utah and five years later is still on food stamps, speaks broken English and can’t read or write in English.

The scorecard of Utah’s refugee resettlement is full of both successes and failures, and it was with the hope of figuring out how to have more of the former that nearly 500 people gathered Friday at the Salt Palace.

The goal, Nahas told the conferencegoers, is “planting the seeds of self-reliance.” Part of the answer, he said, is developing “exemplary leadership” among the leaders of Utah’s various refugee communities.

The Refugee Resettlement conference drew caseworkers, refugees, representatives from refugee community groups and government agencies and volunteers. As Gerald Brown, director of Utah Refugee Services, told the group, “The only way we can get this done is together.”

Last year’s 1,200 arrivals included refugees from Iraq, Bhutan, Burma and Somalia. According to Brown, some 25,000 refugees have been resettled in Utah since an influx of Bosnians in the mid-1990s.

More than half are doing very well, he said. And the vast majority of the rest, he says, “given an opportunity, are going to be an asset” to the state.

Since the Refugee Services office was created two years ago, Brown said, refugees have benefited from more intensive case management, rental assistance, a refugee leadership program through Salt Lake Community College, and grants to 20 refugee community organizations.

Still, he said, “the problems we’re facing now are big ones,” including convincing local businesses to hire refugees.

The conference themes were neatly summed up in “The Refugee Resettlement Game,” a board game created by Stacey Shaw and Jonathan Codell of the International Rescue Committee and presented at one of the conference breakout sessions.

At one table, a Croatian, a Burmese, a Bosnian, an Albanian and three representatives of the LDS Humanitarian Center moved a game piece around the board as they encountered typical refugee pitfalls (“rent is late”) and successes (“child succeeding in school”). “It’s not a race to the end,” Shaw reminded them, “it’s a race to self-sufficiency.”

The conference continues today with sessions for refugees, including one focusing on “Bridging the Cultural Gap Between Parents and Youth.”

Source: Deseret News

Global warming could create 150 million ‘climate refugees’ by 2050

Environmental Justice Foundation report says 10% of the global population is at risk of forced displacement due to climate change. In 2008 alone, more than 20 million people were displaced by climate-related natural disasters, including 800,000 people by cyclone Nargis in Asia, and almost 80,000 by heavy floods and rains in Brazil, the NGO said.

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, who presented testimony to the EJF, said people in his country did not want to “trade a paradise for a climate refugee camp”. He warned rich countries taking part in UN climate talks this week in Barcelona “not to be stupid” in negotiating a climate treaty in Copenhagen this December.

Nasheed urged governments to find ways to keep temperature rises caused by warming under 2C. “We won’t be around for anything after 2C,” he said. “We are just 1.5m over sea level and anything over that, any rise in sea level – anything even near that – would wipe off the Maldives. People are having to move their homes because of erosion. We’ve already this year had problems with two islands and we are having to move them to other islands. We have a right to live.”

Last month, the president held a cabinet meeting underwater to draw attention to the plight of his country. The EJF claimed 500 million to 600 million people – nearly 10% of the world’s population – are at risk from displacement by climate change. Around 26 million have already had to move, a figure that the EJF predicts could grow to 150 million by 2050. “The majority of these people are likely to be internally displaced, migrating only within a short radius from their homes. Relatively few will migrate internationally to permanently resettle in other countries,” said the report’s authors.

In the longer term, the report said, changes to weather patterns will lead to various problems, including desertification and sea-level rises that threaten to inundate low-lying areas and small island developing states. An expert at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris recently said global warming could create “ghost states” with citizens living in “virtual states” due to land lost to rising seas.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts sea-level rise in the range of 18-59cm during the 21st century. Nearly one-third of coastal countries have more than 10% of their national land within 5 metres of sea level. Countries liable to lose all or a significant part of their land in the next 50 years, said the EJF report, include Tuvalu, Fiji, the Solomon islands, the Marshall islands, the Maldives and some of the Lesser Antilles.

Many other countries, including Bangladesh, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia, Chad and Rwanda, could see large movements of people. Bangladesh has had 70 climate-related natural disasters in the past 10 years. “Climate change impacts on homes and infrastructure, food and water and human health. It will bring about a forced migration on an unprecedented scale,” said the EJF director, Steve Trent. “We must take immediate steps to reduce our impact on global climate, and we must also recognise the need to protect those already suffering along with those most at risk.” He called for a new international agreement to address the scale and human cost of climate change. “The formal legal definition of refugees needs to be extended to include those affected by climate change and also internally displaced persons,” he said. Global warming will force up to 150 million “climate refugees” to move to other countries in the next 40 years, a new report from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) warns.

Source: World Sentinel

American friends helping refugees, one family at a time

Imagine arriving in Portland, Maine from a refugee camp in Somalia or Burma and not knowing the language or the customs of America. How do I mail a letter? What do traffic lights mean? What type of clothing do I need to survive a Maine winter? These simple tasks are often taken for granted but to a refugee, learning American customs and social etiquette can be an overwhelming experience. This is where an American Friend steps in to help.

To a refugee our country is another world. The American Friends program, through Catholic Charities Maine Refugee and Immigration Services, is designed to match caring, English-speaking families or individuals with refugee families to help ease the very difficult transition these refugees experience when they move from their country and culture to ours. Generally, the American Friends volunteer helps the refugee family: Learn to function independently in their new surroundings, cope with cultural shock, preserve their cultural identity, and learn a new language.

Tobin Hagelin and her family have been volunteering as American Friends to Dayreh and Someh from Burma since June of this year. According to Tobin the experience has been “such a valuable learning experience for herself and her family.” Volunteering with her refugee family for just an hour or two a week has created a bond between the 2 families that will last a lifetime. Tobin’s daughter has play dates with Dayrek and Someh’s daughter, and her teenage sons take the older children on bike rides around the neighborhood. Tobin remarked, “if you just give what time you can, you will make a difference in someone’s life.”

You can make a difference in someone’s life! For additional information on the American Friends program, please contact Aimee Vlachos-Bullard, Volunteer Coordinator, at (207)523-2737 or at abullard@ccmaine.org.

Source: Maine Business

Hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees in Kenya threatened by floods

Refugees moving to higher ground in Kenya's Dadaab when it was hit by floods (Photo: B. Bannon/UNHCR)

The U.N. refugee agency is appealing for $2.8 million to help more than 300,000 refugees in two camps in Kenya threatened by flooding. The UNHCR says the mainly Somali refugees in Kenya’s overcrowded Dadaab camps urgently need to be protected from the worst effects of the torrential rains.

Most of Kenya is suffering from the effects of the prolonged drought. But, along the Indian Ocean Coast and the northeastern region of the country, people are being pounded by torrential rainfall.

The United Nations reports thousands of people have lost their homes and livelihoods, and, it warns flooding and landslides from the rains may affect up to 750,000 people.

U.N. refugee spokesman, Andrej Mahecic, says many of those affected by the flooding are Somali refugees living in Kenya’s overcrowded Dadaab camps.

“We fear that the looming El Nino phenomenon…a change in the atmosphere and ocean of the tropical Pacific region that produces floods, droughts and other weather disturbances in many regions of the world-may now threaten the 338,000 mostly Somali refugees in the two camps, which in any case usually are flooded for three months every year,” he said.

Although the yearly floods are predictable, Mahecic says the UNHCR is limited in what it can do ahead of time to protect the refugees from their destructive impact.

He notes the government gives the ground for the campsites and the UNHCR is unable to move the refugees to safer land without permission from the Kenyan authorities.

He says the Dadaab camps are a good example of the dilemma faced by the agency and the refugees who reside there.

“It was initially planned to hold 90,000 people,” said Mahecic. “Perhaps if it held the original population, the situation would have been different. Perhaps the camp would be smaller and less effected by potential flooding. However, it is now three times its original size in terms of population, not in terms of land. It makes it extremely difficult to change the site once you have it there.”

Mahecic says the UNHCR began digging trenches and placing sandbags around hospitals, bore holes and other strategic locations in both camps, when heavy rains started three weeks ago.

He says many sections of the camps would have been inundated without these and other measures. He says the agency is planning to move refugees who might be worst affected by the floods to higher ground within the camps.

He says much of the money from the appeal will be used to pre-position essential items such as fuel, blankets, plastic sheets, and to respond to possible outbreaks of disease.

Source: VOA News

Genetic tests for UK asylum seekers draw criticism

Experts say tests are based on flawed science and there’s no way genetic swabs can provide meaningful evidence regarding nationality

Britain is using genetic tests on some African asylum seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality, drawing criticism from scientists and provoking outrage from rights groups.

The United Kingdom Border Agency launched the pilot project in September amid suspicions there might be a large number of asylum applicants lying about their home countries. An agency spokesman said Britain was the only country using genetic tests in this way. Experts, however, say the tests are based on flawed science and there’s no way genetic swabs can provide meaningful evidence regarding nationality. Concerned about potential fraud, the Bush administration launched a pilot DNA testing project in 2007 to vet applicants to a programme that allows family members of African refugees already in the United States to join them. The project, which wrapped up in March 2008, found an extremely high rate of fraud –

87 percent – among applicants claiming to be related to each other, the State Department said, and the resettlement programme was suspended until those concerns could be addressed. The US does not use genetic tests to try to prove nationality. Authorities in Britain described the testing as voluntary and said applicants would be asked to provide a mouth swab or hair or nail sample only in cases where questions arise about their nationality and they would be free to decline. The government argues such tests can provide valuable – although not conclusive – evidence in assessing whether or not asylum seekers are telling the truth about their country of origin. So far, the tests are being used only on people who claim to be from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, though if successful, officials say the plan could be rolled out further.

Several experts slammed the effort as “fundamentally flawed science”, and a petition has been sent to Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling for the project to be dismantled. “Genes are not aware of national borders,” said Sir Alec Jeffreys, a geneticist at the University of Leicester who developed techniques for DNA fingerprinting.

“Nationality is a legal concept, and it’s got nothing to do with genetics at all,” said Jeffreys, adding that the kind of genetic research needed to identify ethnic origins according to DNA in Africa has never been done. Human rights experts said the voluntary label was misleading. “If people do not consent to this test, that could jeopardise their application or otherwise be construed negatively,” said Jill Rutter, a spokeswoman for Refugee and Migrant Justice, a London-based legal charity for asylum seekers and migrants. “Refugees might not be in a position to understand what’s going on and they could be without legal representation when this request is made,” Rutter said. “It puts them in a very vulnerable position and their rights may be infringed upon.” Refugees may be eligible for asylum in Britain if they can prove they face persecution at home because of their race, religion, political views, sexual orientation, or other factors.

Last year, nearly 26,000 people applied in Britain; of the more than 19,000 cases where decisions were made, 3,725, or 19 percent, were granted asylum. People from more repressive or chaotic countries, like Sudan or Somalia, often have a better chance of gaining asylum than those from more stable countries like Kenya. In a document describing the project, the Border Agency acknowledges “testing will only provide a clue to the person’s ancestral lineage allowing a probable identification with a

particular country”. The agency had originally planned to use genetic test results as definitive proof of nationality, but scaled that back after scientists protested. A spokesman for the agency said results would only be used in combination with other ways of determining an asylum seeker’s nationality, such as language analysis and interviews, and would not be used to deport anyone. “We are only trying to establish the efficacy of this approach,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy. The Border Agency expects to test about three samples a week during the 10-month-long project. The tests will also be used to determine if the children asylum seekers are trying to bring into Britain are actually related to them. In addition to the pilot programme in the US, such testing on children has also been conducted in France.

Besides genetic tests, British officials are also performing isotope analysis of asylum seekers’ hair and nail samples. Scientists can look at the composition of certain elements like oxygen or strontium in hair and nails to see where a person has been. But these isotopes are present only so long as the hair and nails have recently been growing, meaning such tests will only give clues into an applicant’s recent whereabouts. “I don’t see how hair and nails can be used to tell you anything about (birth) origins,” said Jane Evans, an isotope expert at the National Environment Research Council in Nottingham. It is possible to get more precise information about a person’s origins using isotopes, but only with a bone or tooth sample, she said.

Britain has been a lightning rod of controversy in the debate over security versus civil liberties. It has one of the largest DNA databases in the world, with more than 5 million samples collected by authorities to help fight terrorism and crime. In a landmark decision, the European Court of Human Rights recently ordered Britain to destroy nearly 1 million DNA samples and fingerprints on its database – samples taken from children, people who had never been charged or people acquitted of crimes.

Since terror attacks in the US and Britain, authorities have also used DNA collection as an important counterterrorism tool. DNA samples taken on battlefields in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan from detainees and suicide bombers have provided clues about terror cell members and how they are linked to global cells, British security officials said. Samples taken during terror raids in Britain have also allowed investigators to trace suspects to suspects abroad, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of their work. Experts said that while it is legitimate for the government to try to confirm asylum seekers’ claims, it has to do that in ways compatible with the principles of a democratic society – and with a credible test. “Genetic testing may be able to tell you where somebody’s ancestors started out, but it doesn’t tell you where they’re from,” said John Harris, a professor of bioethics at Manchester University, who also sits on the government’s Human Genetics Commission. “It won’t give them anything worth knowing, and it’s very likely that what it will give them is misleading.”

Source: Daily Times

US mulls DNA tests for some refugees

The Obama administration is considering using DNA tests for some foreign refugee applicants following a Bush-era pilot program that found massive fraud among those claiming family links to join relatives already in the United States.

The State Department said Thursday that it and the Homeland Security Department are nearing a decision on ways to reinstate a refugee resettlement program that was suspended last year when the fraud was uncovered.

“These new procedures will likely include DNA testing,” the State Department said in a statement given to the Associated Press.

The U.S. experiment using genetic testing ended in 2008 and was aimed only at proving family relationships. The program was not used to identify nationality by country, similar to a controversial effort in England, officials said. Genetic experts have cast doubt on the ability to use DNA results to determine a person’s country of origin.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because a decision has not yet been made on reviving or expanding the pilot program.

Although no final decisions have been made, the State Department said it “was close to the end” of a review that had been delayed by the change in administrations. “Now that policy-level people responsible for this issue are in place, we expect to reopen the program with revised procedures in the near future,” an official said.

The suspended pilot program, known as Priority 3, allows foreign — almost all of them African — family members of legal U.S. residents to join relatives here.

With little fanfare, the program was halted in March 2008 after DNA testing on applicants in Africa found that up to 87 percent of their familial claims were fraudulent.

The experimental program was conducted in late 2007 and early 2008 on about 3,000 people mostly from Somalia, Ethiopia and Liberia who claimed blood relationships with each other and wanted to be reunited with a family member who had been resettled as a refugee in the U.S.

DNA testing was not done on the alleged relatives in the United States. The State Department said it targeted Africans abroad only for genetic testing because they make up 95 percent of applicants to the program. The testing started, officials said, only after suspicions of fraud arose in applications originating among refugees in Kenya.

“We were … only able to confirm all claimed biological relationships in fewer than 20 percent of cases,” the State Department said in a fact sheet. “In the remaining cases, at least one negative result was identified or the individuals refused to be tested.”

The fact sheet was originally released last year in the waning weeks of the Bush administration but was reissued shortly after President Barack Obama took office.

The idea of such testing on refugees came into the spotlight again this week when British authorities said they were using genetic tests on some African asylum-seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality. That move has drawn criticism from scientists and provoked outrage from rights groups.

As the U.S. review winds down, questions were raised about what to do with the estimated 36,000 African refugees who arrived in the United States under the resettlement between 2003 and its suspension.

The Homeland Security Department has jurisdiction to determine if any of those applications were fraudulent but department officials said Thursday they had no plans to check those already in the United States. Such a move would likely draw opposition from civil rights groups.

Officials said Homeland Security does not have a specific DNA testing program in place in the United States. But one official said it has always asked for a DNA submission if an applicant does not have evidence that proves there is a family relationship.

Source: The Associated Press

Sudanese war survivor shares tales

A Sudanese civil war survivor and an author talk about the need for more community responsibility. (Photo: Sajika Gallege/Herald photo)

Award-winning author, refugee talk about education’s role in supporting communities

An award-winning author and the former Sudanese refugee who inspired his novel advocated for global recognition of the continuing problems in southern Sudan at the University of Wisconsin Wednesday.

Dave Eggers, author of the novel “What is The What,” told the untold stories of men and women who were displaced by the civil war in Sudan because he said he believes the media simply glossed over the 13 years these people lived in refugee camps.

“It is necessary to let people know about the millions of people who died during the civil war because the conflict was far bigger than anyone could ever imagine,” Eggers said.

The man who served as motivation for the novel, Valentino Achak Deng, was driven from his Sudan town, Marial Bai, when he was a young boy, spent several years in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps and eventually was granted the opportunity to resettle in Atlanta.

“I was at the center of the conflict during the civil war and no longer wanted to keep my story quiet,” Deng said. “I wanted to inform people about the conflict and about the many people who paid the ultimate price.”

Eggers’ novel highlights the responsibilities of people who live in the world of privilege and encourages them to act in aiding those who are suffering, said Madison resident Eric Eble.

All proceeds from Eggers’ book went directly to the funding of a secondary school to be built in Deng’s hometown.

Many of the primary schools in Marial Bai have almost no access to ordinary school supplies, Deng said. Children had to sit underneath trees in the dirt to receive instruction.

He added after primary school, the children had no opportunity to receive any form of secondary education, which inspired him to encourage Eggers to donate the profits from his book to the creation of an institution for higher learning.

The new high school, which is the sole institution of its kind in the entire region, took slightly more than one year to build and now offers more than 100 Sudanese teenagers the chance to obtain not only access to textbooks and professional educators, but also a greater amount of general knowledge, Deng said.

“What Deng accomplished in his community is amazing because education is a way to develop the community and to achieve progress,” said University of Wisconsin graduate student Andrea Padgett.

Deng said he continues to advocate for universal educational opportunities by attempting to convince his community of the importance of educating both boys and girls, which is uncommon in much of Sudan.

Since effort from the entire village is essential to raising a child, the construction of this school will help to heal the division and pain that is present within the entire community, Eble said.

Deng ended by stressing the necessity of both the freedom of his people in Sudan, as well as global cooperation and peace. He offered a final plea to the audience asking everyone to “keep the faith so that improvement of the global community is possible.”

Source: The Badger Herald

Zambia repatriates more than 500 Congolese refugees

Zambia repatriated more than 500 Congolese refugees on Wednesday, bringing to 15,660 the number of people who have returned to their home country since May, The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said.

UNHCR resident representative, James Lynch, said in a statement that 502 Congolese refugees, most of whom fled to Zambia a decade ago at the height of the civil strife in their country, left by boat from Mpulungu heading for Moba and Kalemie in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Lynch urged more Congolese refugees to come forward to be repatriate before the voluntary programme concludes at the end of this year.

“I call on more Congolese refugees to take advantage of the remaining days to repatriate. UNHCR stands ready to assist any Congolese refugee who comes forward to repatriate,” Lynch said.

Zambia hosts 34,671 Congolese refugees, with 17,959 of them in the camps of Mwange and Kala in the far north of the country and in Meheba and Mayukwayukwa in the west and northwest.

In 2007, 7,323 Congolese repatriated while in 2008, 9,700 returned to DRC, Lynch said.

Source: Reuters Africa