Guinea
Refugees 'devastating' to Guinea

afrol.com, 8 November - Guinean officials state that Guinea has reached the limit of how many refugees the country can receive. Refugees are now said to have a "devastating" influence on Guinea. Guinea hosts some 460,000 refugees from neighbouring Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau.

Francois Fall, Guinea's representative to the UN, yesterday could inform that his country had the largest ratio of refugees to domestic population of anywhere in the world. "The long-range effects are devastating to the environment and to the country's social situation," he explained. UN Agencies have almost not distributed any aid the last month, as even humanitarian workers were attacked by rebels from neighbouring countries.

Because of the environmental damage caused by the presence of large numbers of refugees, the Guinean Government has been seeking compensation from the international community. The concentration of tens of thousands of penniless refugees in camps with bad infrastructure causes pollution and unsustainable strains on local resources. In particular forest and wildlife resources are exploited by refugees seeking firewood and food.

This in turn causes heavy social burdens for the local population. "Those are the people who feel the first impact when refugees enter a country, sharing their meagre resources until international assistance arrive and then putting up with the rise of tensions when supplies to refugee camps are inadequate," the Tanzanian representative Mangachi added at yesterday's UN conference.

And this is exactly what has happened in Guinea. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other organisations had withdrawn from Guinean refugee camps in mid-September in the wake of a spate of attacks which cost the life of the UN agency's head of office in Macenta. An uncounted number of refugees and Guineans were also killed. Only now is the UNHCR slowly returning to Guinean refugee camps, noting a "deteriorating nutritional situation". A UNHCR spokesman only yesterday admitted that food deliveries to more than 200,000 refugees in the Guéckédou area, southeastern Guinea, was on an "ad-hoc" basis.

Also, the security situation in Guinea has detoriated significantly, partly due to the massive influx of refugees. The overwhelming majority of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees are ordinary people in desperate need of help to escape the armed conflicts in their countries. However, some armed bandits have managed to mix in with the refugees, jeopardizing the status of their civilian countrymen and -women. Further, armed bandits from Sierra Leone and Liberia have crossed the border and attacked refugee camps and Guinean villages, threatening a spillover of the conflicts in their countries into Guinea.

- Guinea has been subject to attacks by Sierra Leoneans, some of whom have taken refuge in Guinea, Francois Fall concluded. "It is simply not permissible that refugees who have received Guinea's hospitality should join rebels intent on destabilizing the Government." His statement mirrors the recent hostilities by Guineans against refugees.

OAU to discuss refugees in Guinea
- In March, Fall said, "Guinea will be hosting a conference on refugees in conjunction with the Organization of African Unity (OAU). It will centre on four key stages of assistance to refugees and protection of their rights. The first will be at the point where refugees are given asylum. Second will be the identification of refugees to separate them from rebels. The next will come at the point where refugees can decide on freely repatriating. Finally comes the stage of channeling the assistance of the international community to refugees at reception areas that are safely protected from attack." 

Togo's representative Roland Kpotsra, speaking on behalf of the OAU, supported Fall in his analysis. "While it is true that States have the responsibility to provide aid, Africa presents a unique situation. How coan a continent of developing countries carry the burden alone?" he asked. 

Tanzania, which takes the heaviest refugees burden in the war ridden Great Lakes region, also called for greater international responsibility taking. The situation in Tanzania in fairly comparable to Guinea. The "local populations were now growing weary as a result of the refugee phenomenon, which degraded the environment, spread disease and increased crime and other vices in refugee-hosting areas," the Tanzanian representative said.

The OAU conference on refugees in Guinea will have to address an ever-growing problem all over the continent, where millions of refugees seek shelter in underdeveloped neighbour countries with little resources to provide for basic needs. The basis for a conference is the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention, to which also Guinea is a party.

Relocation of refugees
Several thousand Sierra Leonean refugees have already returned to their home country following the recent rebel incursions and attacks by Guineans. Sierra Leone, however, is not "conducive to voluntary repatriation," as the UNHCR states. Nonetheless, the areas of Bo and Freetown are considered to be safe zones, and refugees are heading for these locations. 

The majority, however, will have to stay in Guinea for quite a while, as they cannot be taken care of in Sierra Leone. Thus, the Guinean Government has proposed six new camp sites which could be used for the relocation of some 125,000 refugees currently in the most insecure areas of the border zones. The sites are discussed with the UNHCR, and checked for their environmental and social sustainability. 

The UNHCR will administer those camps, but funds are always lacking, even for the UN agency. Thus, refugees mostly are let to see how they best can survive on their own, and will continue to cause "devastating" effects to "the environment and to the country's social situation" for years to come - if not in Guinea, then in other countries. 

Source: Based on UN sources

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