The ceremony was attended by the Minister of the Interior of Angola, Eugénio Laborinho, who reiterated the Government's commitment to continue adopting policies to guarantee better living conditions for its population, refugees and asylum seekers who choose Angolan territory as their destiny.
According to the Minister of the Interior, the country has been welcoming refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo due to the military conflict that is plaguing the neighboring country, “creating social conditions to minimize the difficulties faced, especially by children, due to the fact that they are outside their country source".
“Since the independence of Angola, our country, even in a difficult historical context, has never stopped receiving refugees, whose legal status finds acceptance in Law n.º 10/15, of June 17, on the Right to Asylum and Refugee, as well as Presidential Decree No. 200/18, of August 27, which creates the National Council for Refugees and its regulations”, said Eugénio Laborinho.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Angola, Victor Trani, said that registration started this Friday in Luanda, and the process should take place in the coming months, extending to the remaining provinces.
Victor Trani said that talks are continuing with the Government for the implementation of the process, which will take "several months to register and document all refugees and asylum seekers who are in Angolan territory".
“Not only in Luanda, we also need to go to the provinces, so we will need a very long period”, said the official, noting that documents are handed over as they are registered.
According to Victor Trani, refugees and asylum seekers in Angola to date did not have the possibility of having this documentation, and many are undocumented and/or with expired documents.
“This launch today is a super initiative organized by the Government of Angola, with the technical support of UNHCR. We need to emphasize the supreme support of the Government of Angola and above all the partnership and all the activities not only in Luanda, but also in Lunda Norte, where we have a refugee settlement with about 6700 [Congolese] refugees in the Lóvua settlement”, he underlined.
According to the UNHCR representative, the organization has a register of 56,000 refugees, of which 30,000 are asylum seekers and 26,000 are refugees, numbers that may change according to the statistics resulting from this registration process.
The UNHCR representative in Angola highlighted the importance of this process, which allows national authorities to know the number of refugees in the country, as well as guarantee their safety and legal issues, also emphasizing that this document helps this fringe of society to have access to services and opportunities.
“And also creating opportunities, so we are doing our utmost to include refugees and asylum seekers in the Development Plan of the Government of Angola 2023-2027, and ensure their inclusion in public policies for refugees and asylum seekers”, he stressed. .
