UNHCR urges Guinea to open up to asylum seekers

UNHCR said on Thursday it was “deeply disturbed” by Guinea’s continued closure of its southern border with Liberia and its refusal to allow Liberian asylum seekers to enter the country. The UN agency said its representative in Guinea had told officials at the Ministry of Interior of its “growing concern” over Guinea’s failure to meets its international obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention. Residents of the southern border towns of Yomou and Macenta told a UNHCR team last weekend that “scores of Liberian asylum seekers” fleeing fighting in Lofa County had been refused entry into Guinea. “Hundreds of others had reportedly gathered on the Liberian side of the border waiting to be let through,” UNHCR reported from Geneva. Area residents told the team that when Liberian rebels attacked and burned villages in northern Lofa County in April, some Guinean nationals who were among those fleeing were the only ones allowed back into Guinea. UNHCR said its staff had not been able to visit these areas regularly because of the delicate security situation along the border. It said Guinean authorities had classified the borders as a military operation zone, and travellers to the areas need authorisation. UNHCR has not returned to Macenta since September 2000, when the head of its office there was murdered and another staff member abducted. “A full-time presence has, however, been re-established in Nzerekore, to the southeast of Macenta,” the agency said. UNHCR says it is caring for over 80,000 Liberian refugees in Guinea, most of whom live in sites and villages close to the border. It is arranging their transfer to a new site 36 km northeast of Nzerekore, and is ready to help further arrivals.