Tens of thousands of people flee Kenema

Tens of thousands of people fleeing rebel attacks this week on Kenema, an eastern diamond mining town in Sierra Leone, have been stopped from entering the second largest city of Bo, aid officials told IRIN today (Thursday). WFP Regional Information Officer Wagdi Othman said 60,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) were stopped at the Jambeh checkpoint manned by the West African intervention force, ECOMOG, just outside Bo. “These people are now stranded there in the bush,” he said. ECOMOG has been reluctant to allow the mass movement of civilians into towns because anti-government rebels have, in the past, disguised themselves as IDPs to infiltrate urban areas. A Guinea-based aid worker also told IRIN that ECOMOG was trying to persuade the IDPs to return to Kenema, which had reportedly reverted to ECOMOG control. WFP said it had no access to its food warehouses in Kenema nor fuel to transport the IDPs to another site. WFP is feeding 5,000 people in Bo, 60 km to the west, but does not have enough food in this town to take care of the IDPs at Jembeh, Othman said.