Canadian envoy expects humanitarian situation to worsen

The Canadian envoy to Sierra Leone, David Pratt, has warned that human suffering in the West African country will worsen before it improves, Sierra Leone Web reported on Friday.

"With the onset of the rainy season and the possible return of more than 100,000 refugees from Guinea, the situation is likely to become much worse through 2001," he said in a new report published on Friday in Ottawa, the Canadian capital.

Thousands of former refugees, mostly returnees from Guinea, are waiting in transit camps or host communities in Sierra Leone for the government to declare their home areas safe. They fled their country during the 10-year war between the Revolutionary United Front and successive governments in Freetown. However, attacks by dissidents from Sierra Leone on Guinean border areas coupled with hostility to their presence in Guinea prompted many to leave for home.

Pratt said the root cause of the war lay in poor governance, a disappearing formal economy, youth unemployment, poverty, poor education and a weak infrastructure. He said current financial aid for good government and long-term economic development were "absolutely vital" for the enormous investment in peacekeeping and emergency aid to Sierra Leone to be worthwhile.

"If, after the emergency abates, Sierra Leone becomes a neglected donor backwater once again, the chances of a return to violence will be high," Sierra Leone Web reported him as saying.