Refugee deaths

(First Edition)

About 30 refugees, mostly children from Burundi, are dying daily in Rwanda, Zaire and Tanzania, an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) diplomat said yesterday, Reuter reports from Addis Ababa.

Bomina-N'soni Longange, Zaire's ambassador to Ethiopia, told an OAU commission after visiting the host countries that more than 1 million refugees were living in appalling conditions. He said camps were overcrowded, short of food and lacked sanitation and clean water. Diseases such as cholera, dysentery, malaria and measles were common among the refugees.