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Refugees return to Congo with hopes for peace

Returning refugee Molisho Ichoko wants to rebuild his village in war-ravaged Congo, but he doesn't even know whether it still stands, or if three siblings who used to live there are still alive.

Ichoko fled to Tanzania five years ago after a wartime massacre in his village of Mboko. On Tuesday, he was among 400 Congolese refugees who came back ahead of planned June elections that many hope will herald a new era of peace.

"Of course we will have peace after the elections. There will be no more war," 20-year-old Ichoko said after stepping onto the shores of the eastern town of Baraka after an eight-hour boat ride across the blue waters of Lake Tanganyika from Tanzania.

"I want to rebuild my village. I want to study again. We want peace," Ichoko said, carrying two rusty oil lanterns and a yellow plastic canister of water.

Despite the end of Congo's 1998-2002 war, about 420,000 refugees remain outside the country -- 144,000 in Tanzania, according to the UN.

Lawless and sporadic outbreaks of fighting still plague the east, despite the presence of 16,700 UN peacekeepers in the Europe-sized nation.

If the June vote -- repeatedly delayed and ardently awaited -- is held as planned, it would replace a transitional government established after the end of a 1998-2002 war. The vote would be Congo's first in decades.

The UN is chartering boats to help thousands return. Ichoko will be allowed to stay in a transit camp in Baraka for three months, receiving rations of flour, beans, oil and salt before making his way to Mboko, 30km away.

In Baraka on Tuesday, three top UN officials were onshore to greet the returnees: UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, UN Children's Fund chief Ann Veneman and the World Food Program's James Morris.

The three are touring Congo to highlight a lack of funding for a region embroiled by war for nearly a decade.

They will repeat an appeal for US$680 million in humanitarian aid for Congo that was first made earlier this month.

On Monday, Guterres said he fears inadequate funding for Congo could diminish its citizens' zeal for elections and lead to renewed conflict.

"Democracy must make a difference in peoples' daily lives," Guterres said late on Monday. "If frustrations increase, people will stop believing in democracy and conflict might result."

Congo's fragile peace was not easy to win. Rival faction leaders, who had carved the east into fiefdoms backed by neighboring countries, relinquished control in exchange for top positions in a government of national unity that was set up after the war.

The UN peacekeeping mission and other UN agencies spend nearly US$2 billion annually in Congo to keep the peace and help it move toward democracy.

Officials insist more is needed to prevent the country from slipping into war and ensuring money already was not wasted.

"Conflict would be a tragedy after all the investment that Congolese and the international community have committed," Guterres said.

Guterres said public awareness was low about Congo's humanitarian crisis, in which some 1,200 people die daily, mostly from disease and malnutrition.

Aid programs in neighboring countries have also suffered as a result of disasters elsewhere. Funds meant to help repatriate refugees in Burundi, for example, were diverted to Pakistan after its earthquake last year, Guterres said.
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