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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
GUINEA: Ethnic fighting forces UN to suspend activities in southeast
NZEREKORE, 18 Jun 2004 (IRIN) - Two days of fighting between rival ethnic communities in Guinea's southeastern town of Nzerekore has forced UN agencies working with refugees in the surrounding area to suspend their operations temporarily, UN officials said on Friday.
They told an IRIN correspondent visiting the remote town, 850 km southeast of the capital Conakry, that the UN refugee agency UNHCR and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) had both suspended their operations there on Friday, fearing further trouble.
There were disturbances in Nzerekore involving members of the Malinke and Guerze ethnic groups on Wednesday and Thursday, but the IRIN correspondent said the town appeared quiet at midday on Friday. No details of casualties were immediately available, she added.
In Conakry, Jean-Marie Dore, leader of the opposition Union for the Progress of Guinea (UPG) party, who comes from the Nzerekore area, said he had received reports that between two and five people had died in the clashes.
Local sources in Nzerekore said the Guinean security forces had arrested a large number of people in the town, including many Liberians carrying guns. Some of these had been identified as members of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, they added.
Dore said a number of former Liberian fighters had taken part in the disturbances and been using their firearms in the clashes
Diplomats and relief workers have been worried for some time about trouble breaking out in Guinea's Forest Region of which Nzerekore is the capital.
Tension has been rising there for some time as a result of tens of thousands of refugees from Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire living in the area with the help of foreign aid alongside an impoverished rural population, which plays host to an estimated 100,000 returned Guinean migrants from Cote d'Ivoire .
Diplomats fear that idle gunmen from Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia, where a 14-year civil war ended last year, may now drift in and destabilise the fragile social situation.
In 2001, a quarter of a million people were internally displaced in southeastern Guinea following an attempted invasion by insurgents backed by former Liberian president Charles Taylor. This was rapidly suppressed by the armed forces of President Lansana Conte.
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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