Sierra Leone
Looming humanitarian crisis in Sierra Leone

afrol News, 2 July - The UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) today warned of a looming humanitarian crisis if the flow of Liberian refugees and Sierra Leonean returnees continued unabated over the next few weeks. Also the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and non-governmental organisations are concerned by the new refugee influx.

Over the last three months, the situation in Liberia has precipitated a steady flow of Sierra Leonean returnees and Liberian refugees into Sierra Leone, according to the UNAMSIL. "Since the beginning of June more than 17,000 refugees and close to 8,000 returnees have arrived in the country." UNHCR meanwhile reports of between 500 and 700 new arrivals to Sierra Leone per day, "down from a daily average of 1,300 last week."

UN and other agencies would soon be unable to respond appropriately to the needs of the new arrivals and there would be a "serious humanitarian crisis" in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL stated. 

UNHCR aid workers additionally were reporting an increase in "vulnerable cases" among people who have fled Liberia for Sierra Leone over the past two weeks. The elderly, ill and handicapped people, as well as pregnant women, newborn babies and unaccompanied children account for about one tenth of those arriving in Sierra Leone after a rebel attack of the Sinje refugee camp in Liberia on 20 June.

Also the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) in a recent statement warned that the considerable influx of refugees in the country has put a "potentially dangerous strain" on war-damaged Sierra Leonean villages along the border. The influx, it said, threatened to sidetrack efforts to reintegrate tens of thousands of repatriated Sierra Leonean refugees into their home communities. 

According to USCR, Sierra Leone's eastern border district of Kailahun was already struggling to absorb some 45,000 former Sierra Leonean refugees who had returned home. At least 2,000 Liberian refugees had arrived to the same area since 16 June.

The simultaneous influx of Liberian refugees and Sierra Leonean returnees into Sierra Leone's remote border areas posed an unusual challenge to humanitarian agencies and local residents. Many local people already lacked housing as well as medical, water and other basic services which were destroyed in a civil war that officially ended less than six months ago, the USCR statement said.

The new Liberian refugees also increasingly are in need of such services. Over the last weeks, "about 40 to 50 emergency cases have been transported by ambulance to the Kenema Hospital, including several child malnutrition cases, gynaecological emergencies, anaemia and serious infections," the UN refugee agency reports. 

The clinic at the border was treating between 90 and 130 individuals a day, half of them ill with malaria. There were also "cases of diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, scabies and sexually transmitted diseases," UNHCR reports from Sierra Leone. 

Sources: Based on UN sources, USCR and afrol archives