Deported Guineans complain of ill treatment

Hundreds of Guineans expelled from the diamond-mining area of northeastern Angola have begun arriving home, complaining of poor treatment by the Angolan authorities as they were packed onto planes to Conakry. A total of 461 Guineans expelled from Angola arrived in Conakry aboard two planes last week and Guinean officials said about 1,000 more were expected in the coming days. The government has converted a former community youth centre in Conakry into a transit camp for the new arrivals, but an IRIN correspondent who visited the building said there were barely any facilities there and most people had chosen to move out immediately. “The people had to sleep on the bare floor. One woman had to spread her wrapper out for her child to lie on because the government was not fully prepared to receive the new arrivals”, Amadou Wuri Diallo, one of the receptionists at the centre, told IRIN. Many of those expelled said the Angolan security forces looted their possessions and beat them before packing them onto planes. "The Angolan military, which no longer has a war to fight, turned upon us, took away our belongings, often violently, and beat up those of us who tried to resist", Alimou Bah, one of the returnees stated upon arrival at the airport. A small number of the returnees carried a few belongings wrapped in cloth bundles, but the majority stepped off the plane empty handed. Amadou Balde, told IRIN under the shade of a mango tree in the compound of his brother’s house in Conakry; “I personally had built a home in that country. I had taken my wife from Guinea to Angola seven years ago. We now have three children, two boys and a girl. Life was not too bad for us. Now, back here in Guinea, I will have to start all over again.” The Angolan government has deported tens of thousands of foreigners since December last year, most of them to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, as part of a campaign to clean up the notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden diamond mining industry. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Angola said in report on 21 May that about 3,500 West Africans would be among those expelled. The authorities in Luanda notified the governments whose nationals were to be expelled, but Guinean officials said they were given very short notice. “The Angolan government told us two months ago that the expulsions would start. We sent an envoy there to negotiate, and we were quite surprised that they did not wait longer,” Aboubacar Cisse, the Director of Communications at the Ministry of Foreign affairs, told IRIN. The next planeload of returnees was due in on Saturday and officials at the transit center were making frantic arrangements to accommodate the new influx. They said the Guinean government had asked several local international organizations, including the International Organistion for Migration (IOM), for assistance. Earlier this week, President Lansana Conte sent his Foreign Minister, Mamady Conde, to discuss the issue with Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos. There have also been reports of expelled residents in Angola arriving back in other West African countries. The Gambian press reported the arrival of 200 Gambians deported from Angola on 23 May and 200 Malians were flown to Bamako on Thursday. Like the Guineans, many of these complained of bad treatment by the Angolan authorities.