Relocation drive shifts eastward

UNHCR’s operations to move refugees from Guinea’s volatile border areas shifted this week to Forecariah in the east of the country, the UN agency reported on Tuesday. Nearly 10,000 refugees are to be helped to return to Sierra Leone or relocated to a new site in Dabola district, central Guinea, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said. On Monday, a convoy carrying 330 refugees back to Sierra Leone left Forecariah, 150 kms southeast of Conakry, for Mambiya, a new transit centre outside Conakry. Those who want to be repatriated will return to Sierra Leone on a boatlift organised by the International Organisation for Migration. The others will be moved to the new Sembakounya site in Dabola. Meanwhile, the relocation of thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees from camps in the Parrot’s Beak region of southern Guinea is expected to be completed by the end of this month, Janowski said. Some refugees there had been unwilling to move, but UNHCR estimates there are still a few thousand who may be willing to relocate from a series of camps along the road between Kolomba, at the tip of the Parrot’s Beak, and Koundou Lengo Bengo, on its northern edge.