BRAZZAVILLE (AFP) - The United States and France were providing a total of 3.57 million euros
(5.13 million dollars) in aid for DR Congo refugees in the Republic of Congo, diplomatic sources said Friday.
The US Embassy in Brazzaville announced a grant of 4.6 million dollars (3.17 million euros) to help the World Food
Programme "provide assistance to the refugees" from fighting in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo.
France will also be helping the WFP "in the distribution of emergency food aid", its embassy said in a statement. The
decision was made after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner visited Congo-Brazzaville on January 9.
"A grant of 200,000 euros will be paid to the Acted association (Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development), which
will distribute kits consisting of tarpaulins, mosquito nets and cooking tools intended for 1,500 households (9,000 people," the French statement said.
French military forces based in Gabon's capital Libreville will also go into action this month to provide air transport to
Impfondo, in the Likouala region of the extreme north of the Republic of Congo.
The aim is to fly vehicles, boats and other material useful for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to this remote part
of the country, where refugees have settled close to waterways.
According to the UNHCR, about 107,000 people have crossed the Oubangui river border to flee inter-ethnic violence that shook
part of the DR Congo's Equateur province between October and December.
Relief workers trying to help the refugees have complained that they lack the means.
The UNHCR has begun to carry out a census of the refugees in the Betou district of Likouala province, which is thought to be
home to about 60 percent of those who fled, said a statement from the UN agency received in Kinshasa.
The other refugees are scattered around the Impfondo district, further south "along a 500-kilometre (300-mile) stretch of
territory besides the Oubangui river."
Carrying out a proper census is "logistically difficult" and has "taken several weeks of preparation" because most of the
refugees live in zones that are accessible only by boat.
In the Central African Republic, where 18,000 people have taken shelter, "our teams have carried out the registration (of refugees)
in December, and continue to register further refugees," the UNHCR added.
