More than 9000 Congolese people have been deported from northern Angola in recent weeks, aid workers said on Monday, creating a desperate situation in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) reported that 1745 people have been expelled from Angola to the Bas-Congo region since the start of June.

And Roman Catholic aid agency Caritas said 7275 people — including more than 600 children — had been deported across the border to Bandundu since 12 May, with more expulsions expected in coming weeks.

They included "1222 women and 312 girls," said Jules Mupenda, of DR Congo's immigration service the Director-General of Migrations (DGM).

He was speaking from Tembo, about 950 kilometres southwest of the DR Congo's capital, Kinshasa.

They had entered the DR Congo through the Kahungula border post, said Mupenda.

Robbed of all they owned

They "have nobody to charge of them and they sleep on market stalls" and some had been robbed of all they owned, even those who were legally in Angola, he added.

Some returnees had been locked up for two months in Angola before being dropped 100 kilometres from the DR Congo border and told to walk.

Faustin Gyasuma, the secretary general of a support association for the re-insertion of people expelled from Angola, said there were serious concerns about the treatment of returnees.

Some had been subjected to intimate body searches, he said.

"There is only one (surgical) glove which is being used to examine between 15 and 20 women on the pretext of looking for smuggled diamonds and money," he said, quoted by the non-governmental organisation Caritas.

"We have heard some terrible accounts of this and what is worse, this glove is being used to examine young girls, putting them all at risk of sexual infections."

They are selling everything for survival

"We don't have the means to come to their aid. We can only take them in. But they're ravaging the fields and selling everything they can. Those expelled live in very difficult conditions," Gyasuma said.

Angola is the world's fifth largest diamond producer and the majority of mines are in the northern provinces. Congolese people seek work illegally in the mines, some of which are mothballed due to the global economic downturn.

But according to Gyasuma, not all the Congolese being returned had been looking for diamonds.

"Some of them are people going there to use cyber cafes, some are businessmen, tailors and some had legal papers which have now been detained."

On Monday the Angolan Immigration Service (SME) announced it had expelled 76 people from DRC from Malanje province and said that 55 people from Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea had also been arrested for being in the country illegally.

Last month the SME said it was carrying out missions in the diamond areas to find illegal immigrants and deport them.

Ocha reported last year that 85 000 Congolese were expelled from Angola between May and August, adding to 140 000 who were repatriated between December 2003 and July 2007.

Since 2004, more than 350 000 illegal immigrants have been expelled from Angola to DR Congo, according to relief agencies, but Mupenda said the latest group included 230 people from 10 west African countries.

AFP

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