As many as 150 Angolans a day are still fleeing the Democratic Republic of Congo despite the end of the formal expulsions, a United Nations official told AFP Thursday.
The Red Cross estimates that around 40 000 Angolans have returned home after a mass expulsion by the DR Congo government in retaliation for a prolonged deportation campaign against illegal Congolese immigrants living in Angola.
The two governments have since agreed to stop the deportations but Koen Vanormelingen, the Angola representative of the UN Children's Fund UNICEF, told AFP: "We are still seeing 100 to 150 people a day coming across, although this is significantly down on the 1 000 a day we witnessed last week".
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He said many had chosen to return to Angola because they no longer felt safe in DR Congo.
The UN Refugee Agency said two thirds of the Angolans whom had official refugee status in DRC and were in dire need of food, shelter and other aid.
The Angolan government has previously announced it has allocated 14-million dollars to the relief effort which is focussing on building latrines and providing clean water and tents.
The aim is to transport the families back to their places of origin as quickly as possible but some had been living in the DR Congo for decades and have nowhere to go back to and could be stuck in the camps for three months or more.
"The biggest risk we have now", Vanormelingen said, "Is that people do not transit the camps and they become permanent settlements". - Sapa-AFP
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