On 15 April, UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director and former coordinator for its study on the "Impact of War on Children" Stephen Lewis briefed correspondents in New York on his recent trip to eastern Zaire, where "Kilometre 41" of the Kisangani­Ubundu access had held "the greatest concentration of human desolation and numbers".

Mr. Lewis said it was anticipated that some 5,000 children needed repatriation. That process, which would conclude with the massive return of large numbers of adult refugees, was "really complex". The refugees were not easily accessible and, with the rainy season upon them, the area was a virtual swamp.

"The children are in extremely rough shape", he said. At Kilometre 41, several hundred children were divided into two groups--one group had received some physical and emotional rehabilitation; the other cluster was very, very sick. The illnesses ranged from dysentery to malaria and acute respiratory infections. Much was being done to attend to them, but even those children considered to be slightly better off were in a "dreadful psychological state".

"The children are sitting almost lifelessly", he continued, "communicating not at all, looking vacantly out towards the world". He called the silence "eerie", saying there were very few situations where 80 to 100 children were together, and "you don't hear laughter, you don't hear crying, you don't hear sounds of any activity". Some of the children had been given to aid workers from the arms of mothers who lay dying. He had met a 15-year-old girl who had been looking after four siblings for six months during the course of the trek through the jungle. Others were exhausted and near death.

Mr. Lewis also said that an earnest effort was under way to trace the identities of the children and begin the process of reunification. UNICEF and Save the Children hoped to reunite between 60 and 70 per cent of the children even before the bulk of them started moving. He said names were being called on bullhorns throughout the various encampments and posted in a particular tent. Photos were being used where possible, along with daily broadcasts, in a desperate effort to reunify families before further unsettlement began. Many youngsters were separated from parents and extended families during the most recent trek. It might, therefore, be possible to reunite them. The children would be transported to the Goma transit centre, which could take up to 1,000 children or more, and moved to Rwanda as quickly as possible.