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NAIROBI, Jan 15 (AFP) - Some 63,000 Rwandans have fled into Uganda to escape fighting at home between government forces and rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), official Radio Uganda reported late Tuesday.
The radio, monitored here, quoted a representative of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) as saying that the latest arrivals brought to more than 180,000 the number of Rwandans who have been granted refugee status in Uganda.
The new arrivals have been put in camps at the southwestern Ugandan towns of Kisoro and Kabale, the radio said.
Some 13,000 Rwandans are currently living at Nakivuli refugee settlement, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of the southwestern town of Mbarara.
The refugee influx started on October 1990 when the RPF rebels, mostly minority Tutsis who had been living in Uganda for the past three decades, unsuccessfully launched an invasion of Rwanda.
Rwanda has accused Uganda of supporting the rebels, most of whom were serving in the Ugandan army before they defected with their arms to launch the invasion, but Uganda has strongly denied the charge.
Rwandan authorities have said that about 600,000 Rwandans are currently registered as refugees in 10 countries -- Burundi, Uganda, Zaire, Kenya, Tanzania, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany and the United States, but unofficial estimates have put the number as high as two million.
str/lto/nb AFP AFP
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