The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda have now agreed to a plan to repatriate refugees uprooted by the recent conflict in eastern DRC. The historic announcement was made on Tuesday in Kinshasa by Filippo Grandi, the head of the United Nations refugee agency. This significant declaration came even as tensions persist between the two nations despite signing a recent U.S.-brokered peace deal in June.
The DRC is currently holding a new round of peace talks with the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, which has seized vast swathes of eastern DRC. Grandi told journalists that his agency had already supervised the repatriation of 533 Rwandan refugees back to Rwanda.
The UNHCR chief urged all parties to respect the principle that all returns must be strictly voluntary and not forced. One NGO, Human Rights Watch, accused the M23 militia of forcibly expelling more than 1,500 people to Rwanda in June.
Grandi said he does not want to see repeated movements that lack verification of the voluntary nature of returns. The M23 militia, which is accused of backing the forced displacement, has officially denied forcibly expelling the more than 1,500 people.