Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea and Liberia resume repatriation - UN agency

Sierra Leoneans have been returning home from Guinea by land this week, after a three-month hiatus due to the rainy season, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) said today.

A convoy of 84 refugees left Kissidougou, in southeastern Guinea on Sunday and crossed the border into Sierra Leone today. They will cross the country diagonally from west to east tomorrow, spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters at the UN in Geneva.

The small number of refugees on the convoy was due to the recent end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and because some employed refugees in Guinea were waiting for their final wages, he said.

UNHCR was planning for four more convoys of about 250 persons each to leave before Guinea closes its borders for its 21 December elections, he said. The first of these was scheduled to leave tomorrow to Kailahun.

Most of the 15,000 Sierra Leoneans still in the camps in Guinea were believed to want to return home before next June, the planned cut-off date for official repatriation. Besides, aid to Sierra Leoneans in all countries of asylum would be phased out in the second half of 2004, Mr. Redmond said.

Twelve refugees went by air to the capital Freetown from Liberia on Monday. A total of 4,067 Sierra Leonean refugees have returned home from Liberia this year, mainly by boat, leaving about 13,000 in Liberian camps, he said.

Some Sierra Leoneans in Liberia were unenthusiastic about repatriation to a country still torn by sporadic fighting, he said.