Thousands of Bissau residents flee

Several thousand city residents fleeing the fighting are heading to the capital’s port and elsewhere in the country, aid workers and media reports said. Bissau’s port is controlled by Senegalese troops who, with those of Guinea, have been supporting loyalist forces since June 1998.

A World Food Programme spokesman told IRIN today that 80 percent of Bissau’s population had fled. He said 300,000 IDPs had recently started returning to their homes in the city.

Lusa said that in a radio appeal today, the junta asked residents to leave the capital.”The radio message was taken in Bissau as a warning that [junta leader, Ansumane] Mane’s soldiers planned to return fire on the position of pro-[President Joao Bernardo] Vieira forces,” Lusa said. AFP reported later that the junta declared a three-hour ceasefire at midday today to allow civilians time to leave.

All Roman Catholic parishes are overcrowd with civilians in Cumura, some 10 km from Bissau, following the outbreak of fighting, the missionary news agency MISNA reported today. At least 5,000 people are in the courtyard of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME). Another 2,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have sought shelter in the Nossa Senora de Fatima parish, it said.