Share & more
In response to appeals that it speed up the repatriation process, UNHCR will double to 500 the number of Sierra Leoneans it is helping return home each week from neighbouring Guinea.
A news release from the agency on Tuesday said the decision followed increasing pressures from the refugees who are eager to their home country following the improvement of security conditions in many parts of the country.
"Some of the refugees also want to vote in national elections scheduled for next May in a country torn apart by more than ten years of civil war," UNHCR said. They will be transported aboard UNHCR's repatriation boat the "Overbeck". The vessel, which until now transported an average of 250 persons on its weekly trip, will add a second weekly rotation to handle the increased flow of returnees.
The first two convoys under the new schedule were planned for Tuesday and Friday this week. Tuesday's convoy was to carry 150 refugees from Sembakounya camp in central Guinea and 100 others from Mambya transit centre, the release said. On Friday 250 refugees are scheduled to be transported from the three camps in the town of Albadaria, north of Kissidougou.
Most of the returnees have come from four camps in the Kissidougou and Dabola prefectures in central Guinea. Others continue to make their own way to the Mambya transit centre some 80 km north of Guinea's capital Conakry, the agency added.
Meanwhile, UNHCR last week transferred 1,816 returnees from temporary resettlements in Lungi, north of the capital Freetown, to their original homes in the northwestern part of the country. According to the statement, a total of 7,500 returnees are to be transported to Kambia District [in the northwest] in the near future. The refugees had returned from Forecariah in Guinea, but were forced to remain in the Freetown area until recently because of continuing insecurity in many parts of the country, UNHCR said.
This year 30,363 Sierra Leonean refugees have returned home with UNHCR assistance, the agency said.
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
