Civilians need security guarantees to return home

Civilians displaced by fighting in northern Sierra Leone will return home and restart their lives if they receive the necessary security guarantees, Bishop Giorgio Biguzzi of the Makeni Diocese told IRIN on Thursday in New York. “They are eager to go back home,” he said. “This is a pre-industrial society and they don’t need much but they do need security to build their huts, farm fields, send their children to school and go to the market.” Biguzzi added that although Sierra Leoneans were very resilient, they were likely to be more cautious than before when deciding on returning home because they had suffered greatly in recent years: Some 40,000 were displaced by fighting in Makeni during the past week, aid workers reported; - In October 1999, former rebels of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) clashed in the town, driving civilians away; - In October 1998, Makeni residents were uprooted ahead of a rebel advance on Freetown; - Ten months earlier, they fled when the rebels wreaked havoc during their withdrawal from Freetown as the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) seized control.