UNHCR closes Massakoundou camp

UNHCR has closed its refugee camp at Massakoundou, southeastern Guinea, heeding a request by local authorities who fear that insurgents might infiltrate the facility, the UN agency reported on Monday. It said the 227 refugees who had been left in Massakoundou after others were transferred to safer sites were taken north to Sembakounya camp, in Dabola Prefecture, central Guinea. About 8,000 refugees had been relocated earlier from Massakoundou to central Guinea. Thousands of others had been repatriated to Freetown, on IOM ships making regular runs from Conakry. UNHCR said it would now return the Massakoundou site and its infrastructure to local authorities. Meanwhile, UNHCR said that during the past two weeks it had removed at least 5,000 refugees from Kolomba and other facilities in the Parrot’s Beak, a strip of land that juts into Sierra Leone. “More convoys will be sent to smaller sites and camps every day next week,” the agency reported on Monday. So far, UNHCR has relocated 44,000 refugees from the Beak, which has been the scene of fighting between insurgents and Guinean forces since September 2000. Many refugees left on foot after attacks between December 2000 and March in Guekedou, just outside the Beak, and Nongoa, which is in the remote area.