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U.N. sends more emergency staff to Guinea |
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January 5, 2001
GENEVA-- (AP) - The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Thursday it has sent more emergency staff to Guinea's volatile border with Sierra Leone and Liberia in hopes of bringing aid to refugee camps that have received no food for months. Meanwhile, 673 Liberian refugees in the Guinean capital, Conakry, have asked to be returned to their country, joining nearly 2,000 Sierra Leoneans who already have been shipped home, UNHCR said. Guinea has one of Africa's largest refugee populations, including 130,000 Liberians and 330,000 Sierra Leoneans. Since early December, many have fled camps in Guinea's insecure border region for Conakry and for safer areas in northern and eastern Guinea. The government has accused Liberia of backing a series of cross-border raids by Sierra Leonean rebels and Guinean dissidents, and maintains that some of the refugees are helping in the attacks. Liberia in turn has accused Guinea of backing rebels who are fighting government forces in the northern part of that country. UNHCR said its staff plan to visit the southern Gueckedou area, where the instability has forced aid workers to suspend relief operations, and see whether food and medical aid can be delivered. On Wednesday, it sent 13 emergency staff to the town of Kissidougou, further north. "Many of the camps have not received food for several months," the agency said in a statement. "Eyewitnesses say refugees are now taking crops from local farmers' fields." In western Guinea, UNHCR said it plans to move some 22,000 Sierra Leoneans from the vulnerable Forecariah area to locations further from the border. West African countries have agreed to contribute troops to a 1,676-member force which will be deployed along Guinea's borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone to restore stability.
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