What You Need to Know:
115 nationals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) attempting to illegally enter Angola were detained today as part of the Angolan National Police’s wider Operation Barometer.
The individuals, 58 women and 57 men, were intercepted by the National Border Guard in Zaire province, which shares its northern border with the DRC.
Of those detained, 17 were ‘repeat offenders’ and referred to the nation’s Migration and Foreigners Service (SME), the remaining detained were repatriated to the DRC.
Just three days prior, on Friday afternoon, a 48-year old Angolan citizen was arrested in the same province while attempting to enter the DRC with over $12,000 USD in cash.
Conflict Fueling Migration:
In recent years, thousands of illegal migrant workers, seeking to mine diamonds in Angola’s Lunda Norte region have been expelled back to the DRC.
M23 rebels and DRC Government forces in the nation’s eastern regions, particularly Ituri, North and South Kivu have been embroiled in conflict since 1996, resulting in some six million deaths. A resurgence of rebel activity in 2022 has displaced approximately 6.1 Million civilians, triggering “one of the world’s most complex humanitarian disasters”, according to the UN Refugee Commission.
According to an Al Jazeera report, mass expulsions of migrants back to the DRC occur every few years, peaking in 2018 with the expulsion of 330,000 workers.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 5.8 million Congolese are internally displaced due to conflict in their regions, while just under half a million Congolese are currently refugees or asylum seekers in Angola, Burundi, the Republic of the Congo, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia.