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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
GUINEA: NRC update on displaced Guineans
ABIDJAN, 17 January 2003 (IRIN) - Encouraged by the overall improvements in the security situation in the country, thousands of internally displaced Guineans returned to their home areas during 2002, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Thursday in its updated background information on the situation of displaced Guineans.
While reports indicated that internally displaced persons (IDPs) had been making a slow but steady return to their home areas, it was also apparent that return had been difficult due to the destruction of many villages, and some towns, in the south-east of the country, NRC said.
Landmines were another obstacle to return in some border areas, it said, adding that the issue of return was further exacerbated by the destruction caused by the floods of September 2001 in Upper Guinea - an area hosting thousands of IDPs from border areas.
However, the overall humanitarian response to the IDPs in Guinea, as well as host communities has been described as "less than adequate".
At the national level, the government's National Service for Humanitarian Action (SENAH) is responsible for the coordination of humanitarian response for displaced persons (and natural disasters). This was consolidated in 2002 to better assess needs, and four regional bureaus were opened with the supoprt the United Nations Development Programme.
Access to vulnerable populations had been problematic. During the height of the fighting, humanitarian agencies were only able to provide intermittent aid to both refugees and IDPs, particularly in the Parrot's Beak region (area bordering northeastern Sierra Leone and northern Liberia) which was closed off to aid organizations for a significant period of time, it said.
As areas began to open up again in 2001, humanitarian organizations found acute subsistence needs among all vulnerable populations - namely refugees, IDPs and host communities.
In the 2002 Inter-Agency Consolidated Appeal (CAP) for Guinea, the UN declared, "UN agencies and their partners in Guinea have been unable to fully address the needs of IDPs and host communities, as most donors have limited their contributions to refugee programmes".
"The resulting disparity between assistance for refugees and assistance for vulnerable groups of Guinean origin remains a major source of concern, and a significant potential source of tension between host communities and refugees," it had noted.
At the same time, the UN identified key problems facing UN agencies and their partners in responding to the situation of internal displacement: 'a scattered population, hard to identify, mingling with host populations, its demographic and socio-economic profile unknown'.
The IDP issue in Guinea suffered further neglect as a result of the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire following the September 2002 coup attempt. The focus of both the government of Guinea and humanitarian partners turned very much towards the new influx of refugees and Guinean evacuees.
A further impediment to the humanitarian response in Guinea has been under-funding, it noted. The 2003 CAP -aimed at addressing the needs of refugees, IDPs and host communities - calls for just over US $54.1 million in donor funds.
However, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), of the US $51.4 million requested in the 2002 CAP, only 51 percent was received. While food aid was relatively well-funded, health, shelter, agriculture, water and sanitation, and economic recovery were particularly poorly funded or not at all.
Before the emergence of internally displaced persons in Guinea, civil wars in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone had already turned Guinea into one of the largest refugee-hosting countries in the world, accommodating some 500,000 refugees by the end of the year 2000 - resulting in further economic decline, ethnic tension and intensifying border attacks.
The crisis inside Guinea itself escalated in September 2000, when fighting broke out in the Parrot's Beak and thousands of Guineans became internally displaced.
The main reason for this crisis was that Guinea became embroiled in a complex regional conflict started by former warlord turned president, Charles Taylor, in Liberia in 1989. Guinea was a founding member of the West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) that was established in an attempt to restore order in Liberia in 1990.
At the same time, Guinea became the base for Liberian dissidents (many of them refugees) who would later form an armed rebel group in opposition to Taylor's warring faction.
Border attacks on Guinea from both Liberia and Sierra Leone began in 2000. These were violent raids, where the attackers would kill, burn and loot. Local populations soon turned against the refugees living in their midst.
The situation in Guinea eased with the ceasefire agreement of May 2001 between the government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with the RUF disarming and withdrawing from the northeastern Kambia district, which had provided a base for launching cross-border attacks.
Further improvements came with the official end of Sierra Leone's civil war at the beginning of 2002, and - in March - an agreement between Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to strengthen security along their borders and restore their latent economic grouping, the Mano River Union.
But while Guinea has felt the positive repercussions of the situation in Sierra Leone, hopes for lasting peace and stability were dashed with renewed armed conflict in northern Liberia in 2002, followed by widespread fighting in Cote d'Ivoire towards the end of the year.
Both these crises created political and security concerns for Guinea: not least the influx of refugees from both countries, and in the case of Liberia, cross-border incursions into Guinea Forestière by unidentified armed assailants.
The Database and the country profile can be accessed at www.idpproject.org, or the complete profile can be sent to you by e-mail on request (Claudia.mcgoldrick@nrc.ch).
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs
[ENDS]
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