UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
Sierra Leone: WFP and UNHCR, 98.5.25

Sierra Leone: WFP and UNHCR, 98.5.25


News Release

22 May 1998

WFP AND UNHCR WARN THOUSANDS OF SIERRA LEONEAN REFUGEES IN GUINEA RISK BEING CUT OFF FROM HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

Monrovia - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme warned today that more than 42,000 Sierra Leoneans out of the 200,000 who have sought refuge in south-western Guinea since early March, will face serious shortages of food and other vital supplies within six weeks unless the two agencies can mobilise more trucks urgently to move people and relief supplies.

These refugees are in remote and inaccessible makeshift camps and risk to be cut off soon from all humanitarian assistance. Roads in the region of Gueckedou in south-western Guinea, most of them unpaved, will become mud baths in the next three weeks when the rainy season fully sets in. Rains have already made passage on these road extremely difficult.

"We have successfully delivered in May a two month food ration to refugees, but as the rainy season intensifies roads are quickly becoming impassable," Paul Ares, WFP Regional Manager for the coastal countries of West Africa said. "If we are not able to move more food during the next two to three weeks, thousands of refugees will go hungry in July."

UNHCR and WFP urgently require a minimum of 30 additional four wheel-drive trucks to transfer refugees to camps where there are adequate water supply, sanitation and health facilities and to continue delivering relief supplies to refugees sites.

The two agencies are currently relying on only 14 trucks operated by their implementing partner GTZ. These trucks are now busy transferring thousands of Sierra Leoneans, arriving at the rate of 300 a day in Guinean villages near the border, to camps accessible during the rainy season. The same trucks are also used to delivery WFP's food aid to over 90 refugee camps in the Gueckedou region.

WFP and UNHCR efforts are also being hampered by the fact that only a small number of commercial trucks are available in the region, and capable of using very poor, unpaved roads.

"We are engaged in a race against time to transfer refugees to accessible camps before the onset of the rainy season. But our transport capacity is stretched to breaking point," Abou Moussa, Head of UNHCR's Regional Operations, based in Abidjan, said.

UNHCR has had to take trucks away from other important relief and repatriation operations to support the emergency in the Gueckedou region.

Trucks currently used to deliver relief supplies to refugees camps in south-western Guinea can each carry only six metric tons. More than 160 trucks rotations will be needed in the next three weeks to transport 1,000 metric tons of food aid, enough to feed 42,000 people for two months.

Since early May, 27 Sierra Leoneans refugees have died of respiratory diseases, diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition in south-western Guinea . Among the 27 refugees who died, 16 were children under the age of five. Many refugees are arriving in poor condition in Guinea after spending several weeks in the bush hiding from armed militiamen.

Fore more information, contact :

Paul Ares WFP Regional Manager/Abidjan (currently in Monrovia) Tel. +231 22 65 93, 22 65 94 or 22 61 63

Abou Moussa Head of UNHCR Regional Operations/Abidjan (currently in Monrovia) Tel.+231 22 62 56 or 22 74 32

Wagdi Othman WFP Information Officer/Abidjan (currently in Monrovia) Tel. +231 22 65 93, 22 65 94, 22 61 63

[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to archive@dha.unon.org . Mailing list: irin-wa-extra]

Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 12:30:44 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: Sierra Leone: WFP and UNHCR warn thousands of refugees risk being cut off from humanitarian assistance, 98.5.25 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980525122749.26748A-p://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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