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At least 35 percent of the 17,479 refugees who have arrived at a new camp in Kountaya, southwestern Guinea, have said they want to be repatriated to Sierra Leone and Liberia, the UNHCR reported on Tuesday. Some of them said they would remain in Kountaya until the situation in Sierra Leone stabilised before returning home.
Even then, they said, they wanted to be provided with shelter, water, sanitation and employment. UNHCR said 77 percent of the Sierra Leonean refugees in Kountaya originated from the Sierra Leonean districts of Kono and Kailahun.
"Many Sierra Leonean refugees express the wish to repatriate to Freetown, although they do not have family or relatives there," Delphine Marie, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Kissidougou, said. The refugees at Kountaya, 7 percent of whom are Liberian, were relocated from around the southwestern town of Guekedou, where the army has been fighting insurgents from Sierra Leone.
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