Sites needed for "burnt-out" refugees

The United Nations refugee agency has reported that it is "desperately" looking for new sites to house refugees who have been forced from their homes by recent violence in Abidjan, the main commercial city of Cote d'Ivoire. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that about 50 refugees were showing up each day at its office in Abidjan, having been burned out of their homes. "Some spend the night outside the gates of the office, leaving them exposed to potential trouble after curfew," said UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski in Geneva, Switzerland. A curfew imposed on Abidjan since an attempted coup d'etat on 19 September has been extended until 7 October. It is currently in effect from 20:00 GMT to 06:00 GMT. UNHCR is caring for more than 600 refugees in three sites in Abidjan, including at least 165 from Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Togo and Sudan in a single residential house. "The refugees are restless, frustrated and scared," Janowski said at a press briefing. "There are many families with six or seven children, often including babies." "The refugees are traumatised by the events of last week and feel unjustly targeted," he added. A policy of burning shantytowns in "precarious districts" of Abidjan, particularly around government buildings and military installations, was continuing, UNHCR reported on Monday. The action had caused an estimated 6,000 people - Ivorian nationals, immigrants and refugees - to lose their homes in the city, UNHCR said. In a meeting with humanitarian agencies on Monday, the government said it was establishing an emergency group to deal with the situation, Janowski said. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian (OCHA) reported the same day that various UN agencies and non-governmental organisations were conducting a humanitarian needs assessment among the displaced.