Military

DATE=01/29/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=U-N-H-C-R / LIBERIA (L-O)

NUMBER=2-285790

BYLINE=DALE GAVLAK

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The United Nations refugee agency says (Tuesday) recent fighting north of the Liberian capital, Monrovia has forced as many as 100-thousand people to flee the area. As Dale Gavlak reports from U-N-H-C-R headquarters in Geneva, the agency is trying to aid fleeing Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees.

TEXT: The U-N-H-C-R said as many as 100-thousand people headed to Monrovia in recent days after an outbreak of fighting between government troops and rebels from the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy.

The fighting erupted in the Sawmill area, about 100 kilometers north of Monrovia. The region also provides shelter to Sierra Leonean refugees.

U-N-H-C-R spokesman Chris Janowski says the refugee agency has taken large numbers of people into U-N run camps.

///JANOWSKI ACT ///

People fleeing the fighting include both local Liberian population, Liberians displaced from other areas of the country and Sierra Leonean refugees who were sheltering in the area when the fighting erupted. According to the government figures, we have about 100-thousand people at Klay Junction, 35 kilometers away from Monrovia, where these people assembled after fleeing the Sawmill area.

///END ACT///

Mr. Janowski says U-N-H-C-R staff have visited a number of camps housing Sierra Leonean refugees frightened by the latest fighting. These people sought shelter in nearby Liberia to escape ten years of civil war in their own land.

But Liberia has its own bloody past. Up to 200-thousand people were killed in Liberia during seven years of civil war that ended in 1997 when Charles Taylor was elected the country's president.

/// OPT /// Liberia's defense minister says the rebels killed several civilians in the recent fighting but government troops pushed them back into a forested area. /// END OPT ///

Human rights groups have accused both sides of atrocities in a war that is closely linked to the recently ended decade-long conflict in Sierra Leone.

U-N-H-C-R spokesman Chris Janowski says the agency is pressing ahead with plans to return thousands of Sierra Leone refugees to their homeland.

///2nd JANOWSKI ACT//

We are hoping in February to have a registration - a proper registration - and people will be able to go back. We have already six-thousand people have signed up to go back to Sierra Leone because of the improvement in Sierra Leone and also the trouble in Liberia is also going to be an encouragement as well for people to go back.

///END ACT///

Many Sierra Leoneans say they want to return home to vote in coming elections in May. (Signed)

NEB/DG/GE/KBK