Switzerland is providing 2.6 million Swiss francs (US $1.6 million) to support relief operations for thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees caught in the fighting in the southwest of Guinea.
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation announced on Friday it would give the UNHCR one million francs (US $605,290) to relocate refugees to safer areas. Another US $665,819 will go to the World Food Programme to buy, transport and distribute 1,370 mt of assorted foods. Some US $302,645 goes to the Swiss chapter of Medecins sans Frontieres, which works in the new refugees camps, especially in the prevention of epidemics.
The SDC has also sent three experts from the Swiss Disaster Relief Unit to Guinea and Sierra Leone: a water and sanitation specialist and a site planner will work with the UNHCR in Guinea while another site planner will go to Sierra Leone to help set up new camps.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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