Refugees' return moves into higher gear

More refugees will now be able to return to Sierra Leone from Guinea by boat each week with the deployment of a second UNHCR/IOM vessel transporting them back home. The "Fanta" and the "Overbeck" will transport 500 and 350 persons respectively with daily departures planned, except on Mondays, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva.

This will increase the total number of arrivals in Freetown from an average of 1,400 to 2,550 per week, Janowski said on Tuesday. Since the beginning of the boatlift in late December, UNHCR and IOM have helped 4,700 former Sierra Leonean refugees return to Freetown, where transit centres are rapidly filling up.

More space is needed for returnees originating from insecure areas of Sierra Leone to which they cannot immediately return, Janowski said. UNHCR was preparing to open a third transit centre at Lumpa, near Freetown, on Tuesday. It will initially accommodate 1,000 people but its capacity will rapidly increase to between 5,000 and 6,000, Janowski said. The two existing centres are Waterloo and Jui, also near Freetown. They house 2,265 people altogether.