Aid dollars help open new camp

AID from Hong Kong is helping open a new site to relieve overcrowded Rwandan refugee camps.

Oxfam, with the help of funds from Hong Kong, is providing fresh water to a site which will hold more than 100,000 refugees.

Many of those expected to move to the new site now live in squalid, hastily erected camps where they need to make a 50-kilometre round trip each day to collect water.

Paul Smith-Lomas, the Oxfam emergency technical adviser in Goma, said it was impossible to provide a sufficient supply of fresh water to all refugees in existing camps.

''Everyone has agreed a new site has to be established,'' he said.

Kibumba, the main camp in Goma, is unsustainable, with as many as 400,000 people crowded into the site.

A source of fresh water has been found in the grounds of a Belgian-owned coffee plantation near the site selected for the new camp at Katale.

The aim is to supply at least 15 litres of water to all refugees within 500 metres of where they stay in the new Katale camp.

''The Oxfam family around the world is really focusing on what is happening here,'' Mr Smith-Lomas said. ''We need the help of people of Hong Kong to raise these funds.'' The Hong Kong Joint Appeal for Rwanda now stands at $12 million.

Revealing the amount as banks closed yesterday, Freda Ng Mei-ling, information officer for Oxfam Hong Kong, said $10 million had already been used to help aid workers cope with the crisis.

The joint appeal was set up just 21/2 weeks ago on behalf of Oxfam, the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres.

See also Page 11