20120228
AFP
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Monday he was concerned by the treatment of illegal migrants on the border of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where uniformed men have raped displaced women.

"I fully understand the legitimate concerns of your government about illegal immigration along your border with DRC," he said during a meeting with Angolan Foreign Minister Georges Chicoty in Luanda.

"It is natural that you need to deal with immigrants engaging in illegal extraction of natural resources," he said.

"However, I remain concerned by the human rights situation of these people and also the sexual violences which are happening to the illegal immigrants and the conditions of the mutual expulsions of citizens along the border of DRC and Angola."

The United Nations is ready to help the two nations form a mixed commission to tackle the issue, which has plagued the diamond-rich border region for years, he said.

Last year a UN envoy reported that the systematic rape of displaced Congolese women and girls by men in uniform continued unabated in a region along the border.

Since 2004, more than 400,000 illegal immigrants, almost all from DRC, have been expelled as part of an Angolan policy aimed at curbing illegal diamond trafficking.

Most of the expelled Congolese had been working in Angola's diamond mining regions, before being caught up in a tit-for-tat dispute betweeen the two nations.