Government relocates refugee camps

The Guinean government is to relocate all refugees camps in the country to the Laine and Albaderia zones near the eastern border with Cote'dIvoire and Liberia, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Guinea, said. The office said in its March-April situation report that under the new policy, refugee camps in other regions of the country would be closed and refugees there would be repatriated or relocated to the two remaining camps. The new policy aims to enlarge the Laine camp from its current capacity of 6,000 persons to 15-16,000. It also calls for the establishment of three official reception centres in the nearby border villages of Bossou, N'Zoo and Nonah. Laine and Albaderia both lie within the thickly wooded part of southern Guinea known as Guinee Forestiere (the Forest region). Guinea hosted 92,536 refugees before September 2002, about 55 percent of them Liberian and 45 percent Sierra Leonean, in camps in various parts of the country. Since the eruption of civil war in Cote d'Ivoire in September last year, 98,479 new arrivals were registered arriving from Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia. They included 58,436 Guinean evacuees, 14,291 Liberian refugees, 11,780 Ivorians and 13,971 third country nationals. OCHA said heavy fighting between Liberian government forces and the rebel movement Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) in Ganta near the Guinea-Liberia border, had caused the massive influx of Liberian refugees into Guinea. "As the UNHCR transferred all refugees to the Laine refugee-camp, the UN estimated that more refugees could continue to be hiding in the bushes around the border, an area declared a "no-go zone" by the Guinean military following speculations that the AFL (Armed Forces of Liberia - the government army) is planning to stage an attack into Guinean territory," OCHA said. "All civilians have been requested to evacuate the subject area." OCHA also reported that resumption of fighting between Ivorian loyalist forces and rebels around Danane in western Cote d'Ivoire in April had sparked off a new wave of people entering Guinea through the Forest region. Between 9-16 April, 2,160 arrivals were registered in the Guiela reception centre at the border, including 1,573 Guinean evacuees, 534 Ivorian refugees, 70 Liberian refugees and 27 Malians. "The security situation around the Guinea-Liberia border areas is extremely volatile with the Guinean military on maximum alert," OCHA said. "This situation affects the day-to-day implementation of operations in the area, as security measures restrict movement in certain parts of the border areas." Meanwhile, 61 third country nationals who fled fighting in northeastern Liberia left Nzérékoré in southeastern Guinea on Saturday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported. They were transported to the Malian capital Bamako where IOM provided return assistance. They were mainly nationals from Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria.