Refugees, IDPs near Kissidougou healthy

A UNHCR health assessment team has found most refugees and displaced villagers 85 km north of the Guinean town of Kissidougou, to be in good health, the agency reported. The UNHCR medical and sanitation team visited Nianfrando which is sheltering some 4,000 Sierra Leoneans. “More families are still emerging from the bush in search of aid,” the agency reported on 29 December 2000. Refugees at Nianfrando received food and are building temporary shelters. The UNHCR said that in villages with smaller numbers, local residents were taking in refugees into their homes. Meanwhile, NGOs have resumed health services at the Massakoundou refugee camp, 189 km southeast of Kissidougou. Designed to hold 20,000 people, the facility is jammed with some 35,000 people, many of whom have abandoned camps in the Guekedou area. Much of the refugee medical infrastructure has been destroyed and trained refugee staff have fled, UNHCR reported. It has sent two ambulances to Kissidougou for use by health partners MSF and the International Federation of the Red Cross.