CONFIDENTIAL
ANNEX II
RHODESIAN REFUGEES
Numbers and distribution of refugees
1
The number of refugees leaving Rhodesia rose sharply in 1976 as a result of the increase of guerrilla activity and security countermeasures inside the country. By mid-1977 they were esti- mated to number 50,000 refugees (35,000 in Mozambique, 11,000 in Zambia and 4,000 in Tanzania). Botswana served as a staging point in the movement of Nkomo/Mugabe adherents out of Rhodesia, but the build-up of refugees there had not started at that time.
2. The flow of refugees into Mozambique appears to have slowed but the UNHCR estimate the number now in Zambia at 25,000. Other sources believe the figure may be 35,000 although this may include some of the armed groups. A very high proportion are children without their parents, creating a major educational problem. HMG contribute through the UNHCR to a school near Lusaka run by ZAPU (Nkomo).
3. Despite a UNHCR financed airlift of 3,000 refugees into Zambia, the number of refugees now in Botswana has risen to some 12,000. Since the signing of the Salisbury agreement the flow of refugees into Botswana has risen to a rate of 1,000 a week.
Refugee conditions
4. Mr Hartling visited the refugee camps in Botswana and Zambia in February and described them as "depressing and grim". In Botswana the medical and catering services appear to be coping up to a point but many have to sleep in the open and such tented accommodation as there is, is squalid and inadequate, creating a potentially dangerous health and security situation. There are no schools. In Zambia, food supplies are inadequate, reflecting the food situation in the country generally.
Children
5. The ZAPU camps in Zambia are inevitably centres of political indoctrination and "recruitment" for the guerrilla forces. over 15 are automatically sent for military training and some have been sent against their will to Cuba or the Soviet Union for "study". Earlier this year, the Botswana Government allocated an area of about 250 sq kilometres at Dukwe for a new camp for the settlement of refugees. There are already some three and a half thousand refugees living in temporary accommodation there. The cost of establishing and administering this camp is being met largely by UNHCR. Unlike the camps at Selebi Phikwe and Francistown, which are mainly transit centres in which potential guerrilla recruits are moved to Zambia, it is planned that Dukwe will have a relatively settled refugee population.
CONFIDENTIAL
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