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GENEVA, Sept 5 (AFP) - UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sakado Ogata will go to New York next week to urge the UN Security Council to act to solve the growing refugee crisis in the former Zaire, the UNHCR said Friday.
The UNHCR is examining its options after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) threw out over 700 Rwandan and Burundi refugees on Thursday, the latest in a long series of serious human rights abuses in the Great Lakes region, spokeswoman Pamela O'Toole said.
"This is not the first time, (which is why) the High Commissioner is so furious," she said.
Over the last month, the DRC and Gabon have sent hundreds of refugees back to Rwanda, more than 100 DRC refugees in a camp in Rwanda were hacked to death with machetes and soldiers of Rwanda's former Hutu army blocked refugees returning from the Central African Republic, O'Toole added.
Ogata will address the Security Council on Tuesday, a visit that was already arranged before this latest crisis. She is in constant contact with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and is still trying to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Organisation of African Unity.
"There is a great need for an intensive focus on what is an absolutely appalling situation for refugees across the Great Lakes region," in eastern DRC, O'Toole said.
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