UNHCR reports relative calm in Guinea refugee camps
17 October -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today reported that the situation in six refugee camps for Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees in Guinea was "relatively calm," although people there expressed the wish to go home.
A joint technical mission visited the camps in Kissidougou and Gueckedou, sheltering tens of thousands of refugees in a region that hosts approximately 400,000 people from Sierra Leone and Liberia. The team noted nutritional problems, especially among young children, as well as an increased need for clean water and better sanitation facilities. Many of the camps had received no assistance since UNHCR withdrew from the border areas in mid-September following the killing of the agency's head of office in Macenta.
According to UNHCR, food distribution has returned to some refugee camps in Guinean border regions, from which the agency and other organizations had been forced to withdraw last month following a spate of violence. In Forecariah, where some of the refugees had not received food for up to two months, rations have been distributed to last them for 45 days.
Meanwhile UNHCR is continuing its assistance to about 300 refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia sheltered at a centre near Conakry, the capital of Guinea. In the city itself, the agency is helping hundreds of Liberians at the Liberian Embassy, which has started repatriating some of its nationals. Last Tuesday, a first group of 450 persons was transported from the Embassy to the harbour, UNHCR said.
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