Elections in Lóvua settlement have been completed. Refugees voted for three representatives per village. Seventy-four per cent of eligible refugees voted of which 35 per cent were women.
A Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) will be held from 17 April to end-May.
The findings will allow the re-design of partners’ emergency foodsecurity and nutritional response beyond July 2018. The borehole drilling has started in Lóvua settlement after a fourmonth delay by the contractor company; so far 84m of the 120m have been drilled.
Operational Context
The outbreak of violence in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in March 2017 triggered the internal displacement of some 1.4 million persons and the flight of over 35,000 refugees into Lunda Norte Province, Angola. The Emergency Relief Coordinator declared an Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) System-Wide L3 Emergency Response for DRC focusing on the Kasai region, Tanganyika and South Kivu provinces on 20 October for a period of six months.
The Government of Angola (GoA) has an open door policy to welcome Congolese nationals fleeing as a result of the conflict. However new arrivals have significantly decreased since July 2017. The operation continues to register additional arrivals under family reunification.
As the situation remains volatile in the Kasai region with rising numbers of internally displaced people, humanitarian agencies in Angola maintain the 2017 response planning figure of 50,000 refugees until end of December 2018. UNHCR is not currently facilitating voluntary repatriation of Congolese refugees from Lunda Norte Province to their country of origin.
The interagency humanitarian response for the Congolese refugees covers the areas of protection, emergency shelter, livelihoods, food security and nutrition, non-food items, water, sanitation, hygiene, health including mental health, and education until the end of 2018.
Refugees registered in Mussungue and Cacanda reception centres have been successfully relocated to the new settlement in Lóvua; the relocation of those living with host communities in Dundo is scheduled to start in May 2018. Currently, 13,475 Congolese refugees (3,359 families) are residing in Lóvua settlement.