• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Refugees

Chaos as 200,000 Congolese Expelled from Angola

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
10/15/18
in Refugees, World
Congolese refugees

In recent weeks more than 28,000 Congolese refugees have made the crossing into Uganda. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Life fell apart last week for a mother of four who was among 200,000 Congolese attacked and then forcibly thrown out of neighboring Angola despite having lived there for a decade.

Speaking in Kamako, a frontier town in southern Democratic Republic of Congo, the woman in her forties said she and her husband had made their lives in the Angolan border town of Lupaca until the nightmare began.

“There were rumors circulating that the Angolan authorities would be expelling foreigners,” from Lunda Norte province which borders on DRC, she said.

“Suddenly on Monday (last week) we saw youths from the Tchiokwe community with Angolan policemen starting to burn the homes of those perceived to be foreigners.”

“When they came to our house, they attacked my husband with a machete and we were forced to flee taking whatever little we could carry,” she said.

“All our children were born in Angola and only speak Portuguese,” she said.

Amidst the chaos, the woman lost track of one of her children during the move.

“We are here in Kamako without money,” she said. “We are selling what little we have so that we can eat.

“My four-year-old child has disappeared and I sold my dress for $1.20 to pay for a radio announcement to help find my child,” she said.

Angola was a former Portuguese colony while DR Congo was ruled by the Belgians and is a francophone country.

Oil-rich Angola attracts many Congolese as it is relatively more stable and offers better employment prospects.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has an abundance of mineral wealth but large swathes are rocked by unrest and violence unleashed by rebel groups and militias from within and neighboring nations such as Uganda and Rwanda.

The operations last week against migrants triggered clashes between Congolese, security forces and local Angolans.

Local media and an NGO reported that several migrants have been killed, though Angolan authorities deny any deaths or forcible repatriations.

Lunda Norte’s governor, Ernesto Muangala, on Saturday said that that “more than 200,000 Congolese living illegally in Angola have been repatriated on a voluntary basis.”

Trucks were seen plying incessantly over the weekend taking Congolese nationals to the border from Dundo, the capital of Lunda Norte.

Several Congolese patiently waited outside the Angolan consulate in Kamako, brandishing their Angolan residence permits. The doors of the mission were closed.

“What are we going to do in DRC? We have all lived in Lucapa for 10 or 20 years,” said Daniel Mukenge, a man in his forties.

‘We are Condemned to Death Here’

“Our papers are all in order. We have invested and built homes,” he said.

“Now the authorities are refusing to recognize the documents that they themselves delivered. We are now asking our authorities to intervene so that the Angolan authorities buy our houses otherwise we are condemned to death here,” he said.

An Angolan official at the consulate meanwhile told the group: “The solution does not lie here.”

And an Angolan immigration official at the Kamako border outpost feigned incredulity.

“How can these people refuse to go back to their country? It makes me laugh,” he said.

The Congolese authorities say they are struggling to cope with the returnees, with up to 1,000 arrivals every hour.

“At this rate, we cannot register them,” said Mahieu Boma, a local official from the national commission of refugees.

In Kamako, the new arrivals take shelter wherever they can – under mango trees, in schools and churches.

Sunday mass in many churches began late as a result of the influx.

“For the present, there are 750 families of between three and four people each who are sheltering in our facilities,” said Father Crispin Mfamba from the local Saint Gabriel parish.

Humanitarian Organizations Face Their Own Crisis

 

Share3Tweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Humanitarian worker places a face mask on a child refugee during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interviews

‘Public Health and Asylum Not At Odds:’ Shortcomings During COVID-19

by Delaney Murray
August 17, 2020
Voters queue up for elections in Central African Republic.
Opinion

Central Africans Should Not Be Denied Right to Vote Based on Their Faith

by Anurima Bhargava and Tony Perkins
August 14, 2020
Migrants waiting at the Turkish border.
Interviews

Not Accepted: The Tale of an Iraqi Human Rights Activist in Turkey

by Victoria Mulville
July 30, 2020
A Syrian government flag flies above the rubble in the neighbourhood of Hajar al-Aswad near Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria
Opinion

Syria’s War, Victims, and How Those Most Complicit Rationalize Horrors

by Stephen J. Lyons
July 7, 2020
Children stand among the rooftops of homes after the Yusuf Batir refugee camp in South Sudan was hit by flooding, November 2019
Opinion

World Refugee Day 2020: Is It Time for a New Refugee Convention?

by Ross Michael Pink and Luthfi Dhofier
June 19, 2020
Refugees and their children wait in the buffer zone at the Turkey-Greece border
Opinion

Don’t Make Refugees Political Pawns in Turkey-EU Game

by Raluca Bejan
April 17, 2020
Next Post
Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel's Top Court to Hear Student's Appeal in Latest Showdown Over Boycott Movement

A Syrian refugee family in Jordan

Humanitarian Catastrophe 'Imminent' in Isolated Syrian Refugee Camp [Report]

Recommended

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed on October 2, 2018, while he was inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Reporters Without Borders Sue Saudi Prince Over Khashoggi Murder

March 2, 2021
Hatice Cengiz delivers a speech addressing the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Capitol Hill, May 16, 2019.

Khashoggi Fiancée Demands Punishment for Saudi Prince

March 1, 2021
People lay flowers in central Moscow at the site where late opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was fatally shot, February 27, 2021.

Russians Mark Sixth Anniversary of Kremlin Critic’s Murder

February 27, 2021
What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

March 1, 2021
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) meets with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in Khartoum, last August

Sudan’s Normalization With Israel Is a Win for Everyone

February 26, 2021
Ethiopian refugees who fled the conflict in Tigray gather to receive aid at the Tenedba camp.

Eritrean Troops Killed ‘Hundreds’ in Ethiopia Massacre: Amnesty

February 26, 2021

Opinion

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

March 1, 2021
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) meets with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in Khartoum, last August

Sudan’s Normalization With Israel Is a Win for Everyone

February 26, 2021
Stolpersteine in Greifswald, Germany.

I Can’t Mark Where My Grandfather Is Buried, but I Want to Mark Where He Lived

February 26, 2021
Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley

Trump’s Acquittal and Republican Senators: Not Setting the Bar Low Enough

February 22, 2021
Why Not Equality for America’s Puerto Rican Men and Women?

Why Not Equality for America’s Puerto Rican Men and Women?

February 19, 2021
Refugee child holding up a sign reading 'we are human like you'

US Asylum Laws Must Catch up With the Reality of Today’s Refugees

February 18, 2021
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post