Church group requests US $450,260 for refugees

Action by Churches Together, a worldwide alliance of churches and relief agencies, appealed on Friday for US $450,260 to aid tens of thousands of refugees in Guinea. "As Guinea itself is a poor country with very limited resources to assist the refugees, it is the obligation of the international community to assist the host country," the alliance said. It has asked one of its affiliates, the Lutheran World Federation/Department of World Service, to prepare a contingency plan to help 10,000 new Liberian refugee arrivals in the country. "With no hope for repatriation in the near future they clearly need to be supported," the alliance said. Liberians have been fleeing their country as a result of recent fighting between dissident forces and government troops north of the capital, Monrovia. The Lutheran federation has proposed mental health care and trauma healing, environmental protection and local community projects, including agricultural projects for refugees and host communities in areas of southern Guinea. A skills-development project for the refugees and income- generating activities are also to be organised. The plan, which targets refugees in the southern prefecture of Nzerekore and Gueckedou, is due to end on 31 December. In 1996, the Lutheran body provided skills training and trauma healing for Liberians in the Nonah refugee camp in southern Guinea. During the two-year project it helped 12,000 Liberian refugees. [For more details visit http://www.act-intl.org/appeals/appeals_2002/AFGN21-sum.html]