UNHCR suspends food deliveries in southwest

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has suspended its food deliveries to refugees in southwestern Guinea, following a rebel attack on the garrison town of Nongoa, the agency’s spokeswoman in Guinea told IRIN on Monday. “We will wait for a few days. The authorities have recommended we do not go there,” Delphine Marie said. Insurgents have been launching sporadic raids into the Parrot’s Beak, a wedge of Guinean territory that juts into Sierra Leone, since September 2000. They attacked Nongoa - which lies 30 km west of Guekedou, within the Beak - on Thursday as the UNHCR’s implementing partner, Premiere Urgence, was about to make food deliveries to the town. Some 700 refugees have fled to Mongo, Marie added. Casualties could not be ascertained even as the government said it controlled Nongoa. A multiagency UN security assessment team that visited Nongoa just before the attack reported that refugee camps were one-third occupied. The team - comprising employees of the UNHCR, WFP and UNICEF - reported that several camps nearer the embattled town of Guekedou were abandoned by the Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees.