More than 50,000 refugees return from Guinea, Liberia

Just over 53,000 former refugees have now been helped to return to their home areas, resettled in host communities or accommodated in temporary settlement sites near Freetown and in eastern Sierra Leone, UNHCR reported. UNHCR said it was helping Sierra Leoneans who have been returning from Guinea in organised boatlifts as well as people who have gone back to Sierra Leone on their own from Liberia or Guinea. It said on Tuesday that more than 3,200 returnees in the eastern town of Daru were waiting to be transported by the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to Kenema, some 50 kms to the south, where the former refugees are registered and assisted by UNHCR. It said 4,300 returnees had been registered in Kenema.