Refugees continue to sail home

Over the past two weeks, UNHCR has repatriated 513 of the 720 Liberians in Freetown who had registered with it to go back home by sea, according to the UN agency. A humanitarian source told IRIN today that most of the returnees, who sailed home on four trips beginning 10 March, had registered apparently because the war entered Freetown in January. Most are people from the Krahn ethnic group who fled Liberia in September 1998 after supporters of Krahn leader Roosevelt Johnson fought bitter gun battles with government forces in central Monrovia. UNHCR has since located another 2,000 of the 8,000 Liberians it had counted in Sierra Leone at the end of 1998. Many of the refugees had been dispersed by the January fighting. In a report yesterday, UNHCR said 1,225 refugees were repatriated from Freetown, N’zerekore in Guinea, and Tabou, Guiglo and Toulepleu in Cote d’Ivoire in the past week. Nearly half (590) went back to Grand Geddeh county - populated mainly by Krahns - which, UNHCR said, was “a positive development for the repatriation programme” given the September fighting. Since May 1997, at least 102,500 Liberians have returned home through the UNHCR, the agency said.