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Thousands of refugees and displaced Guineans have been fleeing a camp in southwestern Guinea following fighting on Friday in the nearby town southwestern of Guekedou, the UNHCR office in Guinea reported.
People from Nyaedou camp started to walk behind a convoy of 15 UNHCR trucks heading north to a new site at Albadaria, where refugees from the camp are being relocated.
UNHCR arrived at Nyaedou early Friday to pick up several hundreds of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees. On Thursday, UNHCR said, Guinean troops had turned back a similar convoy during two hours of fighting in Guekedou town.
On Friday the convoy reached Nyaedou, 15 km north of Guekedou, at about midday and about 1,000 refuges boarded the trucks. Refugees had long expressed frustration at the pace of their relocation and fear for their lives.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, UNHCR was able to transport
close to 700 refugees to Albadaria in two convoys of about 10 trucks, including three trucks loaded with luggage.
The Nyaedou camp was host to some 34,000 refugees. While a small number were long-time residents, many had moved there from camps farther south, after the first by insurgents from Sierra Leone.
UNHCR and other aid workers on the convoy estimate that a majority of the camp's population have taken to the road. They reportedly include some refugees who reached Nyaedou from the Parrot's Beak, a slice of Guinean territory that juts into Sierra Leone. Many were in bad shape, very thin and without possessions.
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