Deputy High Commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Mary Ann Wyrsch will on Wednesday leave Geneva for an 11-day mission to West Africa to get a first-hand look at several ongoing operations. During her four-nation mission, Wyrsch will also discuss administrative, financial and management issues with UNHCR staff involved in some of the refugee agency's most challenging operations, UNHCR media relations officer Delphine Marie said at a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. The operations include current refugee movements in Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire, as well as the Sierra Leone repatriation. Wyrsch will travel to the border areas and refugee or returnee camps to meet recently arrived refugees from Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia. She will also meet Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia, as well as recent returnees in Sierra Leone, Marie added. Her first stop is Guinea where she will spend four days. On 19 January, she is scheduled to fly to Freetown, Sierra Leone, for a three-day visit. She will then travel to the Liberian capital, Monrovia on 22 January, and on to the Ivorian economic capital, Abidjan, the next day for a one-day stay. She returns to the Guinean capital, Conakry, on Friday, 24 January where she will meet with UNHCR representatives from the region on 25 January before leaving that evening for Geneva.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions