Quarter of DRCongo refugees in Angola 'have gone home'

Nearly a fourth of the estimated 30,000 refugees sheltered in Angola's northeast have returned to their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo's restive Kasai region, an Angolan official said Friday.

"Of the 31,240 refugees from DRC hosted by the Angolan government in the Lunda Norte province, 7,535 have voluntarily returned home," local official Wilson Palanca told AFP.

"This shows that a stable climate is returning to Kasai," Palanca said.

Violence in Kasai erupted in August 2016 when a tribal chieftain known as the Kamwina Nsapu, who rebelled against President Joseph Kabila's regime, was killed. 

Since then, more than 3,000 people have died and 1.4 million have been displaced, figures from the UN and the Catholic Church suggest. 

Tens of thousands fled to neighbouring Angola and were sheltering in makeshift camps around the northeastern town of Dundo.