By Saliou Samb
CONAKRY, Guinea, Feb 21 2002 (IPS)

Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees in Guinea have refused to return home, citing security reasons.

“As long as we don’t have any absolute guarantees that the present process will bring peace to our land, we cannot go home,” says Fatimoh Sillah, a young Sierra Leonean who has been living in Guinea for five years.

“We will not risk returning to Sierra Leone while the government tolerates the presence of executioners. We’ve no guarantee that they’ll respect their commitment to remain unarmed. You’ll see, as soon as the war crimes court issues its first sentences, the rebel chiefs will feel threatened and return to the bush,” adds Mohamed Bangura, a refugee in Conakry, the Guinean capital.

The United Nations has set up a tribunal in Freetown to try Sierra Leone’s war criminals.

The main factor preventing Liberian refugees from returning home is the ongoing rebellion in Loffa and Wonjimai counties in the country’s north.

Moise Edwards, a tea vendor in Conakry, told IPS: “I prefer to stay in Guinea rather than return to Liberia, where I lost everything, including members of my family, during the first war (1989-1997). Everyone can see that the war has resumed in the north”.

A Liberian girl, who asked not to be named, expressed a similar view: “I won’t go back to Liberia because of the precarious security situation there”.

With the fighting between the Guinean army and the rebels who both Conakry and the United Nations said were supported by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone and the government of Liberia, most of the 500,000 refugees chose to return to their respective countries. But others have decided to remain in Guinea.

Most of the Sierra Leonean refugees live in Sembakouyah, in central Guinea, and in Kountayah, Boreyah, and Telikoro, in east of the country, about 560 kilometres from Conakry.

Furthermore, 78,000 refugees have settled around Youmou, Beyla, Lola and Nzerekore, near the border with Liberia.

The presence of refugees has created problems such as violence toward women and difficulties in obtaining access to education. In collaboration with some 60 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the UNHCR is trying to ease the plight of the refugees.

Odette Ahounou, a UNHCR official in Nzerekore region, says “Among certain ethnic groups it is not very important to send their girls to school. And even if their parents agree to send them to school, they rarely continue past the first five or six years and go on to secondary. Their parents prefer to get them right into a trade”.

Aminata Camara, of Nzerekore refugee camps, says “some single women who have lost their husbands have become prostitutes”.

The UNHCR says it is committed to improving the conditions of refugees, whose presence in certain areas has paved the way for the creation of weekly markets and the opening of rural paths.

Guinea has received assistance for refugees from the international community since the outbreak of the war in Liberia in 1989 and the war in Sierra Leone in 1991. At present, Guinea has more than 500,000 refugees who fled combat zones where thousands of civilians were savagely mutilated.

The refugees have been subjected to military and police harassment, especially after the first rebel attacks in Guinea in Sep 2000, which officially caused the deaths of more than 1,600 persons and the damage to property worth more than 400 million U.S. dollars.

Many refugees say they are waiting for the first tangible results of the international community efforts to bring peace to Sierra Leone before they return home.

“Unfortunately, the war, which has resumed in northern Liberia at the border with Guinea, has not helped things”, noted a Guinean army officer, who refused to be named.

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