Foreign donors and aid agencies are to assist the Rwandan government to prepare for democratic elections due in July 2003, the United Nations reported last Friday. The UN Development Programme, British, Swedish and other aid agencies are to help Rwanda's electoral commission to draw up a plan for the July 2003 elections, train electoral monitors, provide ballot boxes and computerise voter rolls.

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The situation for Rwanda's estimated 1 million children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and decades of civil conflict is aggravated by the disruption of traditional structures, including the extended family system and community solidarity, UNICEF says.

The restrictions on political and civil liberty in Rwanda, though partly understandable in view of the fragile security situation related to the 1994 genocide and its aftermath as well as the long Congo conflict, are radicalising opposition to the leadership of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), stifling reconciliation and hindering the transition to democracy, says a new report from the International Crisis Group.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International has announced an action plan to halt a recent poaching spree that has left six mountain gorillas dead, one infant in temporary captivity and several others missing in Rwanda.

Eight members of the political wing of a Rwandan Hutu rebel group, who were refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), were expelled from the country on Wednesday.

During talks held on 1 November in the South African administrative capital, Pretoria, Presidents Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Paul Kagame of Rwanda agreed to an extra 90 days to implement the Pretoria peace accord. The accord, signed on 30 July, committed Rwanda to withdrawing its troops from DRC territory in return for the demobilisation and repatriation of Rwandan Hutu Interahamwe militias and former armed forces, who had sought refuge in the DRC following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Forcible repatriations from Rwanda of Tutsi refugees who fled from northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1990s to escape ethnic persecution appear to have ceased, Ron Mponda, the deputy representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Rwanda, told IRIN.

Oxfam Great Britain is an International NGO working with others to find lasting solutions to poverty and suffering. Oxfam GB has supported a programme in Rwanda since the 1970s and is currently operating in the Northwest and Northeast of the country. The head office, which serves as the main support to the programme, is based in Kigali.

Rwanda has withdrawn many of its forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo under a fragile peace deal to end four years of war in central Africa. The remaining few thousand troops are due to leave this month.

The "pressure is still on" for Congolese refugees in Rwanda's Gihembe camp to go home, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Friday. Teenage boys in the camp said they were afraid to return to their homeland, because they knew they would be conscripted into rebel forces in eastern DRC.

In Rwanda in 1994, rapid population growth and extreme environmental degradation were closely linked to the outbreak of genocidal violence, reports James Gasana in an article in the September/October issue of World Watch magazine. Gasana was Rwanda's Minister of Agriculture and Environment in 1990-92, and Minister of Defense in 1992-93. While serving in the government, he collected statistics, which show that the conflict had much more complex roots than just deep ethnic hatred.

The International Rescue Committee is responsible for overseeing the implementation, monitoring and supervision of the IRC's health/child survival program, which operates in the Kibungo region.

Poachers in Rwanda have killed two of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas, a critically endangered species, in an attempt to capture and sell their young, Rwandan wildlife conservation officials said.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported this week that an outbreak in Rwanda of meningitis, which has already struck two million people, may spread to the capital and endanger one million more.

The Rwandan-backed rebel group governing much of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is limiting access to refugees in the Masisi region of North Kivu who have been forcibly repatriated from Rwanda, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda announced last Friday that Rwandan troops would begin their pullout from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) "in approximately one week's time".
* Related Links: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/world/africa/2262015.stm and http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29949

News that the genocide suspect, Jean-Baptiste Gatete, has been arrested is cause for a general sigh of relief in Rwanda. The battle for justice for the genocide is still far from over, but the capture of Gatete in the Republic of Congo on 11 September 2002 hit a primary target. For nearly two decades, Gatete has been notorious as a violent extremist in Rwanda, says the organisation African Rights.

The outbreak of meningitis in Rwanda continues to threaten the lives of some 2 million people, and fears are the disease may spread close to the capital Kigali, endangering another one million people, UNICEF said in a press release Tuesday.

Rwandan authorities have repatriated at least 1,300 refugees to Nord-Kivu Province in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. In coming weeks, an Organising Committee for the Repatriation of Congolese Refugees in Rwanda plans to help 31,500 people return to their homes, the committee announced.