International community needs to do more for Liberia returnees, UNHCR chief

The international community should do more to assist returning Liberian refugees if peace is to take root there, said Antonio Guterres top official of the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR while visiting neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire. Cote d’Ivoire hosts some 38,000 Liberian refugees that UNHCR is actively assisting to return home following last year’s elections that ended 14 years of civil war in Liberia. But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees warned that peace alone could not guarantee Liberia’s future stability. “There is nothing worse than helping people return home, and then having nothing to offer them. No employment, no health or education system, no economic, social or cultural perspective,” said Guterres. “Half of the countries that have managed to resolve their conflict, slip into a new conflict within five years of its post-conflict phase. That shows that we have a collective responsibility to improve our cooperation mechanisms,” he added. Of the Liberians that remain in Cote d’Ivoire, some 7,000 are living in the Nicla refugee camp near the western town of Guiglo, due to be dismantled by December 2006. Another 2,400 are living in the Tabou transit centre, in southwestern Cote d’Ivoire, near the Liberian border. This transit centre is scheduled to close by the end of June 2006. The rest are living in villages all over Cote d’Ivoire, with approximately 5,000 in the main city Abidjan. Many of the Liberians living in camps say they would not be safe in Liberia and want to be resettled to a third country, such as the United States. PB/ SS