Sierra Leone
Refugees returning to Sierra Leone meet assistance

afrol.com, 28 November - Thousands of refugees keep returning to Sierra Leone. Since the attacks on refugees in Guinea in September, there has been a steady influx, however increased after the recent ceasefire between the Government and the RUF terrorists. Although arriving to a country in lack of everything, the local population and UN Agencies are working to assist the returnees.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has already set up reintegration projects for returnees and internally displaced persons in areas of Sierra Leone where spontaneous returns have increased due to recent insecurity in the refugee-hosting areas of Guinea. 

In Lungi, some 30 km north of Freetown, UNHCR is assisting close to 10,000 former refugees who returned by foot or bus from conflict zones along the Guinean border, the Agency's spokesman Kris Janowski today informed. The returnees integrate within the local communities, since a majority of them originate from RUF-held districts of Sierra Leone (mainly Port Loko and Kambia districts). Some of them had been hiding in the bush for two months after leaving Forécariah in southwestern Guinea where several attacks took place. 

Returnees are being hosted in eight villages of the Lokomassama chiefdom in the Lungi Peninsula of Sierra Leone, where UNHCR is to open an office to establish a stronger presence. "Local chiefs were given bicycles to help monitor population movements and community-based programmes are underway in the field of health, water and sanitation, agriculture and education to assist returnees as well as hosting communities," spokesman Kris Janowski said. 

During a mission last week to Lungi, UNHCR officials found returnees in need of supplementary food and medical assistance. While promising more aid, UNHCR has also encouraged them to try to gain a certain degree of self-sufficiency by using the land and agricultural tools given to them.

- A similar reintegration project will be launched soon in the Kenema district, where at least 5,000 returnees have been identified, spokesman Kris Janowski said. UNHCR is awaiting approval from the Sierra Leone Government to start construction of a transit camp from which returnees could be similarly assisted to resettle in the local communities.

Meanwhile, another UN Agency, the World Food Programme (WFP) is carrying out food distribution among Sierra Leoneans, including returnees. During last week only, WFP distributed a total of 416 tons of food to 58,701 people in Freetown, Bo and Kenema. Some 342 tons of food was distributed to 52,840 school children in Bo, Kenema, and Lungi. With the signing of the new cease-fire agreement and new prospects of disarmament in the country, WFP also resumed distribution for the Demobilisation, Disarmament and Rehabilitation Programme by distributing approximately 9 tons of food to 550 ex-combatants in Port Loko.

Returning in high numbers
The rate of arrivals by boat from Guinea has decreased significantly with only the Government-sponsored ferry transporting Sierra Leonean nationals from Conakry. However the number of people of concern to UNHCR has increased dramatically reaching 80% of passengers on the last ferry, many of whom came from the refugee camps in Guéckédou in south-eastern Guinea. The UN Agency is responsible of those persons who have obtained an official status of refugees, a responsibility that includes reintegrating them when returning home. Many of those fleeing Sierra Leone at an earlier stage, however, do not have the official refugee status.

Only yesterday, 2,000 people arrived by boat, bringing to 17,000 the total number of returnees on 37 boats since September. Out of these, more than 4,000 are former refugees of whom three-quarters need temporary accommodation, which UNHCR is providing in a transit centre outside Freetown. A second transit centre should be opened soon to increase our temporary hosting capacity to about 2,000, pending reintegration in a safe area of Sierra Leone. 

Spontaneous returns by land and by boat may have significantly decreased the number of Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea, which stood at 330,000 before the series of border attacks in September and the following restrictions imposed on refugees in Guinea, according to numbers from the UNHCR.

At an earlier stage, returning refugees and internally displaced persons arriving into Lungi, had been reporting attacks and harassment by the military on the way. The returnees also reported that the refugees still in camps in Guinea are not allowed free movement in and out of the camps and once the movement is allowed the numbers of returnees would increase. With the present ceasefire, the overland access to Sierra Leone seems to have become easier, opening up for the growing influx of returnees, which have been waiting to return to Sierra Leone for 1-2 months.

Source: Based on WFP and UNHCR

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