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In Sierra Leone, Security Council delegation meets UN peacekeepers, local leaders
10 October -- Officials from the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone today told a visiting delegation of Security Council members that the situation in the country is "complex, unpredictable and volatile."

The Security Council delegation, which is on the second leg of a five-nation trip to West Africa, was briefed in the eastern town of Kenema, Sierra Leone's third-largest city. A UN spokesman told reporters in New York that although there have been no fights with rebels in the area over the past few months, "concerns include the issue of border security and the need to close the porous borders to the outflow of diamonds and to stop external support for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)."

The delegation drove through Kenema streets, which are lined by diamond dealers, to meet with local leaders, visit a Jordanian field hospital and the Ghanaian contingent, and enter a camp for some 11,000 internally displaced persons, many of whom sang local songs and chanted, "We want to go home."

Before travelling to Kenema today, the 11-member Security Council delegation had split into two groups. Those who went to Kenema also visited Daru, on the fringe of rebel-held territory, where they were greeted by a Gurkha honour guard. The other group went to the towns of Port Loko and Mile 91 in the west.

Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today reported that refugees are continuing to return spontaneously to Sierra Leone as a result of trouble in camps where they were housed in neighbouring Guinea. UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva that since the latest spate of attacks began in early September in the border area, some 6,000 Sierra Leonean refugees have returned to their home country. UNHCR and the Government of Sierra Leone have agreed that the refugees will be relocated to a cluster of about 50 villages in a safe part of the Lungi peninsula where they will be hosted by the local population.

Another group of several thousand returnees is reportedly blocked in Sierra Leone's RUF-controlled Kambia district, where UNHCR has no access. "Returnees have also informed us of significant spontaneous repatriation overland from Gueckedou to the RUF-controlled Kono district, where UNHCR also has no access," Mr. Redmond said.