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UNHCR and the Sierra Leonean government have asked at least 8,000 returnee refugees to leave three transit centres in Freetown which have been their temporary homes since November 2000, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva.
He said the agency would soon need the space - at Jui, Waterloo and Lumpa - when it starts repatriating more Sierra Leoneans from refugee camps in Guinea. The centres are only designed for short-term stays and, Janowski said, conditions there are not the best for receiving aid.
UNHCR has been running regular convoys from the centres to its resettlement sites and host communities in eastern and southern Sierra Leone. However, Janowski said, most returnees had been reluctant to relocate to their home areas. Therefore, UNHCR has decided to open a new site at Taiama, in the southern Moyamba District, so that these returnees, who are mostly of the Kono ethnic group, can be as close as possible to their home areas.
Transfers will be voluntary, Janowski said, but those who decline will eventually have to find alternative lodgings.
UNHCR is aiding 56,373 Sierra Leoneans who have returned from Guinea since September 2000, Janowski said. Of this total, he added, 4,323 were able to return to their homes. The rest are being housed in temporary resettlement sites and host communities until their areas are declared safe for a permanent return.
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