UNHCR reintegrates returnees from Guinea

UNHCR has started reintegrating former refugees who fled fighting in Guinea between government and rebel forces, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva on Tuesday. In Lungi, 19 km north of Freetown, the UN agency is helping almost 10,000 former refugees who either walked or were bussed from areas affected by fighting along Guinea’s border with Sierra Leone. They are being placed within local communities because most of the returnees originate from rebel-held districts such as Port Loko and Kambia. Other returnees are being hosted in eight villages in the Lokomassama chiefdom in Lungi Peninsula, where the UNHCR has opened an office. Janowski said chiefs in the area were given bicycles to help monitor population movements. Community-based programmes are underway in health, water, sanitation, agriculture and education to help the returnees and host communities. In a visit to Lungi last week, the UNHCR found returnees in need of supplementary food and medical help. UNHCR says it will soon begin a similar programme to reintegrate 5,000 returnees in Kenema District, in the southeast of the country. The government must first approve the building of a transit camp from which returnees could be helped to resettle in local communities.