UNHCR set to repatriate refugees

The office of the United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday that it was set to start the repatriation of the first batch of Sierra Leone refugees in Nigeria who have volunteered to go home. The representative of the UN refugee agency in Nigeria, Marcellin Hepie, told a news conference in Lagos that the first 64 refugees - from a group of about 300 who have opted for voluntary repatriation - will be flown to Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital, on Wednesday morning. The rest are to be returned to Sierra Leone in subsequent flights over a one-month period, he added. "The youngest of them is about two months old while the oldest was born in 1947 (55 years old)," Hepie told journalists in the Nigerian capital. Those who are part of the first group of returnees left their camp at Oru in five trucks on Tuesday for the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos (some 80 km south), where they began customs and immigration formalities ahead of their flight. All members of this group are destined for Freetown. "In Freetown, they will be met by UNHCR staff," the refugee agency said in a statement. "Each family will receive a two-month food ration, plastic sheeting, blankets, sleeping mats and other domestic items." The returning refugees were also provided with up-to-date information on the situation in Sierra Leone. More than 3,000 Sierra Leoneans sought refugee in Nigeria during the decade of civil war that wracked the West African country until the Lome Peace Agreement between Sierra Leone's government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in 1999 paved the way for peace. The war was officially declared over in January.