Refugees to return home

Thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees will soon be able to return to their homes in "a newly declared safe area" in the northwestern district of Kambia, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday.

The UNHCR operation to help an estimated 7,500 civilians return to their original homes - the first such operation since the civil war began more than a decade ago, will begin in December. The refugees, who had fled to neighbouring Guinea during the conflict, returned to Sierra Leone at the end of last year. But they have since been living in temporary camps at Lungi, north of the capital Freetown.

This week, the home region of the refugees in northern Sierra Leone was declared safe, UNHCR said, adding that it together with local partners, have been rehabilitating the local infrastructure in Kambia since September. They will continue to help the returnees through support to health clinics, schools, micro-credit schemes, water and sanitation projects, and distribution of seeds and tools, UNHCR said.

During the civil war hundreds of thousands of people fled Sierra Leone to neighbouring countries. But the disarmament of former combatants is now coming to an end with only Kenema and Kailahun districts in eastern Sierra Leone left to be disarmed, the UN said on Tuesday.

Already UNHCR has helped some Sierra Leonean refugees return to declared safe regions of their homeland, but not to their original villages which were often still in insecure areas. At the same time, tens of thousands of refugees have spontaneously to other safe areas in Sierra Leone.