UNHCR braces for influx of Sierra Leoneans

The UNHCR in Guinea says it is planning for the possible large-scale influx of Sierra Leoneans, following fighting between pro-government and anti-government forces in Sierra Leone. The UN refugee agency said on Friday it had room for 10,000 additional refugees in the new camp of Kalako, in the western region of Forecariah. However, it added, “only a few hundred people have arrived in Guinea” - mostly in Forecariah - and “a handful” in Gueckedou, a Guinean area which borders eastern Sierra Leone. The UNHCR is expanding its camp capacity in Kalako and Baladou, also in Gueckedou, and is considering reopening the Guelo site, closed in February. In Freetown, the Sierra Leonean capital, which has regained its calm since the arrival of British and additional UN troops, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had evaluated the needs of roughly 10,000 people who had fled nearby Waterloo and Masiaka, north of the capital, at the beginning of the recent fighting. However, with the improved sense of security in Freetown, quite a few internally displaced people were returning to their camps and homes in Waterloo. “The number of people to be helped in Freetown will not be high,” Patrick Vial, the ICRC head of delegation in Sierra Leone, told IRIN on Monday. The few hundred families unable to return because of continued fighting in their areas will be provided with shelter and sanitary items. Vial said that the ICRC would also give such items to an estimated 6,000 IDPs - mostly women and children - in Lungi, just north of Freetown. Government reports said that between 7,000 and 9,000 IDPs from Port Loko were in Lungi. The national staff of Oxfam and Children’s Aid Direct have confirmed the government’s estimates.