HRW calls for protection for Sierra Leonean refugees

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to take immediate steps to protect Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea by moving them inland. The refugees live in camps close to the Sierra Leone border. In the past three months, Sierra Leonean rebels have often attacked the camps, killing, mutilating and abducting dozens of people, Guineans and refugees, HRW said in a statement on 31 May. In one attack on 22 May, 11 civilians were killed, HRW said. “The brutality and the frequency of these attacks is simply atrocious,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of HRW’s Africa Division. “Refugee camps are supposed to be a safe haven, but these camps in Guinea are a magnet for attack.” “It is a long-standing, fundamental principle that refugee camps should not be located close to international borders with a war raging just on the other side,” said Rachael Reilly, Refugee Policy director at HRW, adding that the refugees “must be moved immediately”. A UNHCR source told IRIN that UNHCR had thus far relocated around 10,000 of the Sierra Leoneans. Around 50,000 people need to be moved to the two new sites some 70- 100 kms from the border where the refugees are being housed. The relocation, begun on 12 April, was suspended from 21 to 25 May while work was being done on the second site, the source said. However, there are only four weeks left until the rains make roads in the area impassable, according to the UNHCR source. “It’s a race against the clock for our field staff,” he said.