Refugee group returns from Nigeria

A first batch of Sierra Leonean refugees returning from Nigeria arrived on Wednesday aboard a commercial plane at Lungi airport, near the capital, Freetown, according to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Upon arrival, the 69 repatriating refugees were met by relief and government officials, and later taken by truck to rejoin their families. Most of the returnees were women and children who had lived in Oru camp, 80 km south of the Nigerian capital, Lagos. The group will receive food and non-food items to enable them resettle.

"The Lagos-Freetown airlift is part of a one-month operation that will see the refugees repatriated in five weekly flights," said UNHCR logistics officer Maggie Heraty.

Some 270 of at least 2,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in Nigeria have volunteered to be repatriated under this programme. The returnees were grouped according to their areas of origin, and Wednesday's flight carried those from the Freetown area.

Later flights, which are scheduled to run up to 25 September, are expected to carry people from Bo, Kenema, Makeni and Koidu for the most part, according to the UN refugee agency.

Since September 2000, it has assisted 112,000 Sierra Leonean returnees and organised transportation for 73,000 others, mainly from Liberia and Guinea. Smaller numbers have also been helped to return from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau and Cote d'Ivoire.

Sierra Leoneans sought refugee during a decade of civil war that wracked the West African country until the Lome Peace Agreement between Sierra Leone's government and the Revolutionary United Front in 1999 paved the way for peace. The war was officially declared over in January 2002.