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Over 3,000 refugees have returned from Liberia to Kailahun district in eastern Sierra Leone, the UNHCR representative in Freetown, Kingsley Amaning, told IRIN on Friday.
“UNHCR is currently making further investigations to clarify the extent of return,” Amaning said.
He added that most of the returnees were in “relatively good condition” because they had been able to cultivate land near the refugee camps in Vahun - in the troubled county of Lofa in northern Liberia - from where they had come. However, most had not returned to their original villages in Kailahun.
Amaning said that lack of shelter was a crucial issue as a huge amount of damage had been inflicted on buildings in villages and settlements in the area during the course of Sierra Leone’s eight-year war.
“UNHCR needs to establish a permanent presence in Kailahun to monitor refugee return,” Amaning said, “but we cannot do so in the current climate where there is no administrative presence, no political, security or judicial structures and a prevalence of armed groups.”
“It is crucial that we have regular access to populations in need for humanitarian purposes,” he said.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
