evidence: Kelvin Shimo told IRIN. The refugees have arrived in the Zambian border town of Chiengi, they were escaping fighting in and around the DRC border town of Pweto, Shaba Province. [...] Shimo said. A Zambian government refugee officer in Chiengi, Malindi Kaima, told IRIN on Tuesday that Pweto had been besieged by rebel forces and that there had been heavy fighting in the area over the past week. "Our information is that Pweto is now almost deserted, refugees tell me that there had been heavy shelling of the town at the weekend". According to Kaima, rebels control the area around the town and are battling with [...] Kaima said that along with this new influx of refugees were nearly 500 DRC soldiers who also fled the fighting at Pweto. He told IRIN that he met some of the soldiers when they arrived in Chiengi. "These soldiers were tired and starving when they reached Zambia, they were disarmed and they'll join the 540 DRC soldiers in Kaputa awaiting repatriation," Kaima told IRIN. The 540 soldiers in the Zambian border town of Kaputa fled fighting around Kalemie, about 200 km north of Pweto, last month.