Refugees make “assessment visits”, UNHCR says

Several Sierra Leonean refugees from Sinje camp in Vahun, western Liberia, have crossed over the Mano River Bridge into Sierra Leone, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said on Friday in Geneva. According to Redmond, most of the refugees said they return to their villages to make assessments and “take the opportunity to do some cleaning and other preparations” before returning to Sinje. Last Wednesday Daisy Dell, UNHCR’s Deputy Regional Director for West and Central Africa, told IRIN that some refugees in Gueckedou, eastern Guinea, were making similar exploratory visits to their villages in Sierra Leone before returning to Guinea. There are more than 450,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in the subregion. Some 305,000 are in the Gueckedou area.