DATE=8/11/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=U-N-H-C-R / SIERRA LEONE (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-265361
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The United Nations refugee agency, U-N-H-C-R,
reports a sharp increase in the past few weeks in the
number of refugees from Sierra Leone entering Guinea.
The refugees say they are fleeing mistreatment and
harassment in rebel-controlled areas (of the West
African state). Lisa Schlein has details from Geneva.
TEXT: The U-N refugee agency says two-thousand-500
Sierra Leonean refugees crossed the border into Guinea
during a four-day period this week. The group
reportedly included 15 children who were forced to
fight with the rebels and a number of women and young
girls used as hostages by rebel fighters.
The refugees have told aid workers they fled from
intensified fighting in the area around Sierra Leone's
diamond mines. Government bombing of rebel-held
positions put their lives in danger, they say, and
they also faced harassment by members of the rebel
Revolutionary United Front, the R-U-F.
U-N-H-C-R spokesman Ron Redmond says the flow of
refugees into Guinea has been increasing this month.
Between May and July, he says, only 600 Sierra
Leoneans sought refuge in Guinea; more than four-
thousand have arrived in the last two weeks.
/// 1ST REDMOND ACT ///
The refugees are being accommodated and
interviewed by aid workers in a camp in the
Gueckedou district of Guinea. A substantial
number of young girls and women have declared
that they were held against their will, some for
several years, by R-U-F forces who recently
decided to free them. It's not clear why. They
had been serving as domestic workers or guards
for rebel camps. Some of the adult women also
said they had been abused.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Redmond says 15 child soldiers, including two
girls, also have been identified among the refugees.
He says the children had been forced to fight with the
rebels for periods ranging from one to seven years.
He says one child had fought with the Sierra Leonean
army.
/// 2nd REDMOND ACT ///
All said they had been heavily drugged with
cocaine and all said they [the rebels] had been
extremely brutal and aggressive. They said they
had been captured by armed rebels and had been
forced to fight as children. They are now
requesting to be moved from the camps, where
they fear some of their former victims may
recognize them.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Redmond says aid workers are keeping the children
away from the rest of the camp population. He says
they are receiving medical and psychological care.
The U-N refugee agency says Guinea hosts more than
300-thousand refugees from Sierra Leone. Another 96-
thousand have sought refuge in Liberia. (Signed)
NEB/LS/WTW/KL
11-Aug-2000 09:38 AM EDT (11-Aug-2000 1338 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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