Civilians flee to Freetown

Thousands of civilians have been fleeing the countryside east of Freetown in fear of renewed rebel attacks and flooding the capital, humanitarian sources told IRIN.

The internally displaced persons (IDPs) heading for Freetown are believed to be from the area between Waterloo, Masiaka and Mile 91, where movements by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) have been reported.

[Waterloo is southeast of Freetown. Masiaka is northeast of Waterloo and Mile 91 is due east of Masiaka]

An inter-agency mission including the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), WFP, WHO, and UNICEF travelled to the area on Wednesday to make recommendations for humanitarian assistance.

Fred Eckhard, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said on Wednesday that some IDPs had already arrived in the capital.

“Some 5,000 people have arrived at the National Workshop IDP Camp (NWC) in the Kissy area of eastern Freetown,” Sorire Jawara, construction coordinator at the camp told IRIN on Wednesday. “Before I left today I saw a long queue of people waiting to go in,” he added.

At the end of April, the camp had some 8,500 IDPs, according to CARE, which manages it. CARE said the new influx of people would place a very high demand on existing resources. “Our most urgent needs are food, water and sanitation facilities,” Jawara said, adding that existing facilities, some nine pit latrines, are overused and need “quick attention.”

Meanwhile a constant stream of people, some with mattresses and other belongings on their head, were walking to the capital from Hastings, 20 km away, the BBC reported on Wednesday. Some were heading for the relative safety of Freetown as “a precautionary measure,” because they have been caught out before, one person said, while others fled because they heard shooting around Waterloo, some 10 km southeast of Hastings.

A former resident of the IDP camp in Waterloo, now in Freetown, said shooting near the camp on Tuesday created panic and virtually emptied it. Many of those now arriving at NWC are from Waterloo and are women and children, Jawara told IRIN. “They look very dejected because of the insecurity but they are healthy and there are no reports of any casualties among them,” he added.

Others, he was told, have relatives in the capital, and will be staying with them.

Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) leader Johnny Paul Koroma claimed that his troops -now allied to the government- had retaken Masiaka, some 60 km east of Freetown. His claims followed reports earlier this week that UNAMSIL forces had withdrawn from Masiaka and that it had been occupied by RUF rebels.

Jean-Michel Piedagnel, head of the MSF-France mission in Sierra Leone told IRIN that two casualties from recent fighting had been received at Freetown’s Connaught Hospital. “One child with a bullet in the shoulder and an adult with a bullet in the leg are being treated at the hospital,” he said. It was not clear where they sustained their injuries.

MSF is maintaining a surgical team in Freetown to assist casualties although it has suspended its missions in Kenema in the east and Moyamba in the south, it said in a news release on Wednesday. It called on the factions involved to “act urgently to save the civilians and to respect the work of the aid organisations.”