Humanitarian aid to refugee camps cannot last forever

BRUSSELS - Humanitarian aid to keep people who fled from Rwanda in refugee camps cannot continue forever, the European Commission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.

But without food, infrastructure and a legal system, Rwanda is far from ready to take back the 2.2 million refugees, the EU's Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Emma Bonino and UN High Commissioner Sadako Ogata told a joint news conference.

"...We have to tell them that the aid cannot last indefinitely because of its enormous financial impact," Bonino told the conference, stressing that the EU and its individual member states together provided almost half the world's aid in 1994.

Ogata said it was impossible to envisage a quick return to Rwanda for the refugees and there was an acute risk of famine due to a lack of funds and food at the World Food Programme.

"The task is enormous and I do not know if we can continue for very long," she said.

"The solution is the return of these refugees to their country, but Rwanda is not ready for a national reconciliation." She said that while she was not satisfied by the action taken by the Rwandan authorities, she could understand the reasons.

"They do not have the means to accept all the refugees especially as nearly one million Tutsis who fled their country 20 years ago have returned home. There is no legal system, there is no infrastructure and no guarantee of security," she said.