UNHCR hopeful of planned troop deployment

UNHCR said on Tuesday it was hopeful that the planned deployment of West African troops to block cross-border raids into Guinea would stabilise the region and enable aid agencies to resume operations. “It is crucial that humanitarian assistance be resumed now,” Chris Janowski, the UNHCR spokesman, said in Geneva. Thousands of refugees and Guineans fled border areas after unidentified assailants attacked the Guinean army garrison at Pamalap, 100 km southeast of Conakry. The area is located on the border with Sierra Leone. The attack - as others elsewhere in Guinea - provoked a violent backlash against Sierra Leoneans and Liberians in the country, prompting more to flee. Meanwhile, Janowski said, Guinean authorities have moved some 25,000 Sierra Leone refugees from a school in Kissidougou to an overcrowded UNHCR camp in Massakoundou, eight km away. “Conditions in the school were reportedly very bad,” he said. “Authorities reported four deaths and three premature births caused by sickness and malnutrition.” Refugees and locals fleeing the border fighting had converged on Kissidougou, which is now empty. Janowski said two local UNHCR consultants travelling on the road between Kissidougou and the town of Faranah, 130 km to the northwest, saw groups of up to 200 refugees walking toward Faranah in the apparent hope of reaching Guinea’s capital, Conakry, nearly 500 kms away. “A UN security assessment mission to Kissidougou and Guekedou reported no major security problems along the road from Conakry to Kissidougou,” Janowski said, “but it found some refugee camps between Kissidougou and Guekedou empty.” Appeal for emergency aid UNHCR and partner agencies have launched an emergency assistance programme to provide food, cooking pots, blankets, soap and buckets for the Massakoundou camp, Janowski said. An UNHCR team is evaluating the possibility of steering fleeing refugees toward the Kankan area, northeast of Kissidougu, where the agency has identified possible relocation sites. UNHCR has also asked Guinean authorities to provide information on the displaced local population. Meanwhile, desperate refugees at the border are paying Guinean truckers up to US $50 to get them to Conakry, Janowski said. “Many reportedly resort to selling all their meagre belongings in order to pay for the trip,” he said. Other trucks hired by a local NGO are transporting refugees from Forecariah, where attacks in September forced panick-stricken refugees and locals to flee.