KAMPALA , 9 June 2009 (IRIN) - The Ugandan police have arrested about a dozen local council officials who have been helping Rwandan refugees living in camps in the southwest obtain false identification documents to enable them to stay in Uganda and thus avoid voluntary repatriation.

"I can confirm that we are holding a number of camp chairpersons in Isingiro district," Polly Namayi, spokeswoman for the Ugandan police in the region, told IRIN on 7 June.

She said the police had arrested local officials from the Nakivale and Kyaka settlements over the scam in which about 500 Rwandans obtained documents falsifying their identities.

Nakivale is home to about 11,000 Rwandan refugees, most of whom fled to Uganda after the 1994 genocide.

Namayi said the refugees who had escaped were trying to integrate into the local population and had settled in areas as far away as Mubende in the central region. Once arrested, she said, the refugees would be treated as illegal immigrants.

Ongoing repatriation

Tarsis Kabwegyere, Uganda's Minister for Relief and Disaster Preparedness, told IRIN the government was investigating the scam, which had affected Ugandan efforts to decongest its camps. Camp numbers have been swelling since 2008 due to an influx of refugees fleeing conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

On average, about 20 Rwandan refugees have been fleeing Ugandan camps every day since May, fearing repatriation, according to security officials.

Recently, a delegation of Rwandan local government officials travelled to the Kyaka, Nakivale and Orikyinga camps to encourage more refugees to return home. According to Kabwegyere, the delegation met Ugandan government officials to discuss ways of ensuring the exercise ran smoothly.

"We agreed to implement more awareness campaigns," he said, adding that corruption scams were partly to blame for slowing down the exercise.

JoAnna Pollonais, a communications officer with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Rwanda, told IRIN that since the start of the exercise, UNHCR Rwanda had received only 1,364 refugees, far fewer than the 20,000 in Ugandan camps.

When the voluntary repatriation exercise ends on 31 July, UNHCR will explore other options for those who have not been repatriated, including local integration, and relocation to a third country, said Vanessa Akello, UNHCR communications officer in Uganda, adding that the agency would not support coercive returns.

Officials say some Rwandan refugees in Uganda have warned others not to return to Rwanda for fear of being prosecuted over genocide-related crimes. Last month, Denis Bikesha, the head of mobilization in the traditional Gacaca courts, travelled to Uganda to allay the refugees' fears by educating them about the workings of the courts.

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