UNHCR said that 2,000 people arrived in Freetown from Guinea on Monday, bringing to 17,000 the number of Sierra Leoneans who have returned by boat since September.
Of these, the agency said, at least 4,000 are former refugees, about three-quarters of whom have been housed temporarily at a UNHCR transit centre outside Freetown. UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said a second transit centre should be opened to increase temporary hosting capacity by about 2,000.
The UNHCR said spontaneous returns by land and boat may have decreased significantly the number of Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea. They totalled some 330,000 before a series of cross border attacks from Sierra Leone in September and after the Guinean government imposed restrictions on refugees.
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