According to figures from the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), at the end of September, more than 50,000 individuals (5,000 households) had left these camps, situated on the Goma-Sake road, as they began to return home. On 30 September last, 12,800 displaced people remained in the Mugunga III camps, hesitant to return home.

Displaced people had taken refuge in camps surrounding Goma, mainly on the Goma Sake road, during the different waves of violence in the province since the end of 2006, mainly during the conflict between the DRC Armed Forces (FARDC) and the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).

Although the number of displaced people in North Kivu province remains high, the return home of the long time displaced from the camps around Goma is an indication that the security situation in the province is stabilizing in some zones.

In this context, MONUC, through its Civil Affairs section and its military component, works in close collaboration with the cluster protection group of North Kivu and the UNHCR to assure the security of those returning from the Goma camps to their homes, in particular on the Goma-Mushake-Ngungu, Goma-Sake-Masisi, Goma-Sake-Kitchanga-Nyanzale, Goma-Kalengera - Tongo, Goma-Kiwanja, and Kiwanja-Binza roads.

MONUC’s Blue Helmets have also reinforced their presence in several return zones and in particular in the zones of Karuba, Kibabis, Ufamandu, Ngungu, Bishusha, Kitchanga and Rugari.

In collaboration with MONUC’s Civil Affairs section and the North Kivu cluster protection group, the Blue Helmets also assure the protection of displaced people that remain in the Mugunga III camps, and they have reinforced their support to the humanitarian actors in the return zones.

Blue Helmets are assuring security where the humanitarians have set up centres to distribute reinsertion kits to returnees. In these zones, MONUC’s Civil Affairs section is making regular visits to monitor returns, alongside other humanitarian actors.