Humanitarian situation better in SL, worse in Guinea, Liberia

The humanitarian situation in Sierra Leone is showing some signs of improvement, compared to Guinea and Liberia where it is deteriorating, a top UN relief official said in New York on Wednesday following a recent mission to the region. “With the apparent weakening of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and with the considerably more robust presence of UNAMSIL (UN Mission in Sierra Leone), there is a sense that a solution is on the way in Sierra Leone,” Carolyn McAskie, deputy emergency relief coordinator, told reporters. However, although the RUF claims it is no longer interested in war, there are reports that children continue to be abducted so as to be forcibly recruited, that women are being raped and subjected to sexual torture, and that incursions are being made into Guinea, she added. Ultimate success in Sierra Leone, she said, depends on the availability of development funding once stability has been achieved in most of the country. The humanitarian crisis in Guinea and Liberia is deteriorating, Mc Askie said. In the past few years, the main concern for Guinea has been how to help it support hundreds of thousands of refugees from Sierra Leone. As a result of recent fighting along the borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone, Guinea now also has some 300,000 internally displaced persons, McAskie said. In neighbouring Liberia, she said, rebel factions in the northern county of Lofa seem to have joined forces against the authorities. As a result, Charles Taylor, who was elected president in 1997 following a bloody seven-year civil war, has been remobilising former territorial forces which had been demobilised and disarmed in 1997 and 1998. McAskie said such a situation could lead to a humanitarian crisis. Potentially there could be 60,000 IDPs in Liberia alone, and as many as 750,000 in the region, in addition to 500,000 refugees. UNHCR reported on Tuesday that recent fighting in Lofa caused a large number of IDPs and refugees in the area to flee to eastern Sierra Leone. Aid workers in Liberia say that tens of thousands have fled the north, the BBC reported on Wednesday. McAskie’s 17-25 April mission focused on understanding the regional implications of the growing crisis in Guinea and Liberia, looking at the humanitarian situation in Sierra Leone and reporting on IDPs and refugees in the region.