Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Benin has called on the international community to support the country and the UN towards meeting the needs of thousands of Togolese refugees in Benin, State radio reported here Friday. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, working in conjunction with the Zambian and Angolan governments, has launched the final phase of the voluntary repatriation of Angolan refugees estimated at 34,500, from Zambian refugee settlements. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) is providing Togolese refugees in Benin with some 53 tons of food, including rice, maize and beans, official sources said in Cotonou. Full text...

Accra- Ghana (PANA) -- Ghana's immigration services said on Thursday that it had registered 12,933 refugees streaming in from Togo, comprising mainly women and children, but the situation was under control. Full text...

Accra- Ghana (PANA) -- Local authorities in Ghana have confirmed that they were registering more Togolese refugees who had been fleeing their country into Ghana following violence that erupted after last Sunday's controversial presidential elections. Full text...

Ilacodji- Benin (PANA) -- Hundreds of Togolese fleeing post-election riots following the release of Sunday's presidential polls results have arrived in Beninese border villages of Ilacodji, Agoue, Djeta and Agokpame, and are being cater for by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and UNICEF, sources said Thursday. Full text...

Ilacodji- Benin (PANA) -- Hundreds of Togolese fleeing post-election riots following the release of Sunday's presidential polls results have arrived in Beninese border villages of Ilacodji, Agoue, Djeta and Agokpame, and are being cater for by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and UNICEF, sources said Thursday. Full text...

Oru- Nigeria (PANA) -- The 2,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in Nigeria's main refugee camp at Oru, some 120 km from the commercial city of Lagos, have called for true reconciliation in their country, which is gradually recovering from years of devastating civil war. Full text...

Bujumbura- Burundi (PANA) -- A meeting of Rwandan and Burundi officials opened here Wednesday on the plight of Rwandan refugees camped for more than a month now in northern Burundi. Full text...

Lagos- Nigeria (PANA) -- Nigeria has started repatriating about 35,000 of its nationals who fled across the border to neighbouring Cameroon in 2001 because of deadly ethnic violence in some parts of the country, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is to resume voluntary repatriation of Angolan refugees from settlements and camps in Zambia on May 4, Kelvin Shimoh, public information assistant at the UNHCR office in Lusaka, said on Friday. Full text...

Brazzaville- Congo (PANA) -- The repatriation of some 60,000 refugees from DR Congo, who settled in neighbouring Congo since 1998, may start at the end of this month, a source close to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, announced here Thursday. Full text...

Bujumbura- Burundi (PANA) -- Burundian authorities on Monday moved 931 Rwandan refugees to transit centres far from the common border three weeks after they fled their country for fear of being charged for alleged involvement in the 1994 genocide. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- The Zambian government and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Monday repatriated seven Rwandan refugees to Kigali under the UN agency's voluntary repatriation programme. Full text...

Yaounde- Cameroon (PANA) -- Cameroon, Nigeria and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have signed an agreement to repatriate 10,000 Nigerian refugees living in Cameroon to their homeland. Full text...

Blantyre- Malawi (PANA) -- Forty-two Somalis and a Sudanese have arrived in the southern Malawi district of Phalombe after walking for two months and 15 days on foot without proper food, water or sleep, they claimed on Wednesday. Full text...

Bujumbura- Burundi (PANA) -- A large number of Rwandans have sought refuge in Burundi due to fears of facing trial for their alleged role in the 1994 genocide, Burundi border area administrators reported. Full text...

Bujumbura- Burundi (PANA) -- Living conditions have severely deteriorated in a camp inhabited by Congolese refugees in Burundi (Banyamulenge) since several NGOs that supplied them with basic necessities were forced to withdraw last Saturday. Full text...

Bujumbura- Burundi (PANA) -- Favourable social and economic conditions would serve as incentives for some 150,000 Burundian refugees in neighbouring Tanzania to return home this year, judging by current voluntary repatriation rates, an official of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, announced Thursday that it was winding down its operation in eastern Ethiopia as the remaining few thousand refugees from neighbouring Somalia would go home in the next two months. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, Thursday expressed fears that over 100 mainly Somalis and Ethiopians may have died at sea in the past week while attempting to reach Yemen aboard boats operated by smugglers of illegal immigrants. Full text...

Accra- Ghana (PANA) -- Japan and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, Tuesday in Accra signed a three-million-dollar grant agreement to support the repatriation and reintegration of Liberian refugees. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Over 350,000 African refugees have returned home during the last one year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Full text...

Freetown- Sierra Leone (PANA) -- The Liberian refugee community in Sierra Leone has criticised the UN refugee agency, UNHCR for allegedly facilitating the arrest and detention of some of the community members, and demanded their immediate release. Full text...

Nouakchott- Mauritania (PANA) -- The opposition Alliance for Justice and Democracy (AJD) here has appealed to the Mauritanian and Senegalese governments, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and donor countries to help find a "fair and lasting solution" to problems faced by Mauritanian refugees in Senegal. Full text...

Nouakchott- Mauritania (PANA) -- Two Mauritanian NGOs Thursday urged the government in Nouakchott to quickly stop the "deterioration" of the living conditions of Mauritanian refugees in Senegal by implementing key African and international decisions and recommendations against racial discrimination. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- Congolese Interior minister Théophile Mbemba Fundu has appealed to the international community for funds to repatriate 412,869 refugees. Full text...

Brazzaville- Congo (PANA) -- The Rwandan community in Pokola, more than 1,000 km north of Brazzaville has rejected a proposal for voluntary repatriation made by the chairman of the national committee of assistance to refugees (CNAR), Jean Christophe Ackondjo. Full text...

Dar es Salaam- Tanzania (PANA) -- Parliamentarians from the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party have called on the Tanzanian government to repatriate all refugees, claiming that they were "increasingly becoming a security risk" to the country. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Requires US$34. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ruud Lubbers, ended a two-day visit to Liberia Thursday, after visiting Lofa in the south-west, one of the seven Counties declared safe this week by the UN peacekeeping Mission, UNIMIL. Full text...

Oru- Nigeria (PANA) -- The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has repatriated 815 Liberians from the Oru refugee camp in southwest Nigeria in 2004, agency officials said. Full text...

New York- UN (PANA) -- With West Africa now at the centre of a huge repatriation movement, Ruud Lubbers, head of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR begins a six-day mission to the region Sunday for talks with stakeholders and returnees themselves. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) is set to implement a plan for the return of some 65,000 DR Congo refugees in neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville, sources confirmed here. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, says preparations are underway for over 150,000 refugees from DR Congo living in Tanzania to return home in early March. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- More than 5,000 Congolese, mainly women and children from North-Kivu province have since last weekend taken refuge in Uganda, UN sources affirmed here Wednesday. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Thousands of Congolese have arrived in Uganda in recent days, fleeing fighting in the Ituri region of neighbouring DR Congo, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- Between 5,000 and 7,000 persons fleeing fighting in Ituri have crossed the border into the Ugandan village of Nkondo, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR reported here Friday. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Cheered by the formal end to more than 21 years of a vicious war, hundreds of Sudanese refugees broke into song and dance in a Nairobi stadium on Sunday as the Khartoum regime and the southern rebels who fought it for years put their signatures to a comprehensive peace agreement to end the carnage. Full text...

Kampala- Uganda (PANA) -- Some 15,000 refugees from Sudan have already returned home since Sunday's signing of a peace agreement that ended the long divisive war in southern Sudan. Full text...

Khartoum- Sudan (PANA) -- The Sudanese government and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) plan to repatriate some 500,000 refugees to southern Sudan from neighbouring countries within a period six months, according to official sources here. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, says it needs about $60 million for 2005 to facilitate the return and reintegration of Sudanese refugees after authorities in Khartoum and John Garang signed a comprehensive peace pact Sunday in Nairobi, ending the civil in South Sudan "The voluntary return of refugees will be a long process that requires much aid, particularly in the light of the lack of facilities and basic services in the Sudanese southern regions," UNHCR notes in press release issued here at the weekend. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, repatriated 17,244 Angolan refugees from DR Congo in 2004, the agency said Tuesday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is continuing efforts to prepare for any potential new movements of refugees from Sudan's Darfur region to neighbouring Chad. Full text...

Oru- Nigeria (PANA) -- Christmas arrived early for African refugees in Nigeria Monday, when the country's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) delivered food items worth 17 million naira (127,000 dollars) to the Oru camp hosting thousands of refugees. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- More than a million refugees face the prospect of hunger and malnutrition in the New Year due to food shortages while several hundred thousand others around the world are already struggling to survive on drastically reduced food rations, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR warned Tuesday. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- More than 300 Liberian refugees arrived here Monday by sea from Ghana. Full text...

Oru- Nigeria (PANA) -- Sixty of the hundreds of African refugees residing at the Oru Refugee Camp in southwest Nigeria have completed a year-long free computer training programme at the camp. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned here Friday that thousands of refugees in Kenya would go hungry unless it receives immediate donations of cash or food commodities. Full text...

Kampala- Uganda (PANA) -- The International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO) has pledged to provide safe drinking water to the Kyangwali Refugee Resettlement Camp in the western Ugandan district of Hoima at a cost of 350,000 US dollars. Full text...