SIERRA LEONE: 250 REFUGEES WHO FLED THE CIVIL WAR IN SIERRA LEONE ARE REPATRIATED FROM GUINEA AS PART OF WFP RESETTLEMENT PROGRAMME

Record ID: 208348

  • Title: SIERRA LEONE: 250 REFUGEES WHO FLED THE CIVIL WAR IN SIERRA LEONE ARE REPATRIATED FROM GUINEA AS PART OF WFP RESETTLEMENT PROGRAMME
  • Date: 20th December 2001
  • Summary: (W8) BARBARA, SIERRA LEONE (RECENT - DECEMBER 20, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. PAN: RETURNEES QUEUING FOR FOOD DISTRIBUTION 0.12 2. MV: RETURNEES GETTING BASIC ITEMS FOR RESETTLEMENT 0.27 3. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE BEING LISTED/ JAPANESE AND U.S. AID (3 SHOTS) 0.52 4. SV/SCU: (SOUND BITE) (English) WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME (WFP) PROGRAMME OFFICER AYA SHNEERSON, SAYING: "This people have fled out from Sierra Leone for their lives into a refugee camp in Guinea, and again had to flee out, because they were attacked last year in the camp in Guinea. This is the first time that they are going back home, back in Sierra Leone to their home of origin of Kambia. WFP is giving them food aid for the upcoming months to help them, once they go back home. I think, for this country, it's the most encouraging step, in Christmas, in this important month that you have seen in years." (2 SHOTS) 1.23 5. MV: UNHCR TRUCK MOVING 1.29 6. SV: WOMAN GETTING OUT OF TRUCK 1.39 7. SV/MV: BOATS (2 SHOTS) 1.49 8. VARIOUS OF RETURNEES GETTING ORANGE FLUORESCENT LIFE VEST (2 SHOTS) 2.04 9. SV: CHILD WITH LIFE VEST BEING PUT ON BOAT 2.19 10. SV/MV: BOATS FULL OF RETURNEES WEARING ORANGE LIFE VEST (2 SHOTS) 2.37 11. VARIOUS OF DEPARTURE (2 SHOTS) 2.52 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 4th January 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BARBARA, SIERRA LEONE
  • Country: Sierra Leone
  • Reuters ID: LVA2H6LKWDH1TTPS5NFNNEOI412L
  • Story Text: Tens of thousands of fighters have disarmed in the west
    African country over the past few month under a UN brokered
    peace plan, allowing aid workers to start resettling an
    estimated 400,000 people displaced by the conflict

    A group of 250 refugees who fled civil war in Sierra
    Leone have been repatriated from Guinea as a part of a
    resettlement process of 54,000 people that the World Food
    Programme (WFP) has carried out so far.

    Sierra Leonean refugees had fled to Guinea to escape
    vicious fighting, marked by widespread killings, abduction,
    rape and amputation. Guinea generously took in close to
    700,000 refugees who have streamed across the border over the
    past decade. As the region's spiralling violence and human
    rights abuses spilled across border, Guinea 's President
    Lansana Conte declared in September 2000 that it was time for
    the refugees to go home, and the place of refuge then became a
    virtual hell on hearth.

    In February 2001, the government of Sierra Leone declared
    parts of the country safe to return to, paving the way for the
    resettlement process to start.

    In December, after additional areas have been declared
    safe, WFP provided resettlement food aid to over 14,000
    returnees from Guinea and displaced people who resettled back
    to their homes in Kambia and Upper Mafoki. The resettlement
    process proved to be one of the most encouraging operations in
    Sierra Leone, and will be repeated during the rest of the
    year.

    After years of war, peace and disarmament are gaining
    momentum in Sierra Leone. So far, some 39,000 ex-combatants
    including hundreds child soldiers have handed in their
    weapons. More than 60,000 refugees have been repatriated from
    Guinea and humanitarian operations have been resumed in
    several formerly inaccessible areas assisting ten of thousand
    of war-affected individuals, who are slowly returning to their
    villages.


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