By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Jun 16 2003 (IPS)

The fighting in Liberia has opened the floodgates for more refugees, including soldiers, to cross into Sierra Leone.

"We have received more than 100 civilians and dozens of combatants fleeing the upsurge of fighting in Liberia. We are screening them for eventual encampment," says a senior police commander responsible for operations in the eastern district of Kailahun, on the border with Liberia.

Over the weekend, some 61 combatants – all from the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), the faction fighting rebel forces – have crossed into Sierra Leone.

Colonel S.O. Williams, who commands an infantry brigade in the region, says: "The soldiers include a colonel and several majors, captains and lieutenants. They arrived with their weapons which include machine guns, assault rifles, RPGs (Rocket Propel Grenades) and explosives."

"The refugees, especially the 100 civilians, look emaciated and brought along whatever belongings they could lay their hands on," a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) official told IPS on Monday.

The main crossing point is Koindu in Kailahun district, situated on Sierra Leone’s eastern border with war-torn Liberia. The UNHCR official said the civilians would be moved further inland and accommodated in refugee camps.

"As for the combatants, they will be screened, their weapons collected and then placed in interment at a camp in Northern Sierra Leone known as Mapeh," said the official.

Sierra Leone hosts more than 100,000 refugees from Liberia. They have been crossing the border following renewed hostilities between government forces and rebels calling themselves Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).

Liberia has been torn-apart by a bloody civil war that is in its fourth year. The LURD rebels, who started the insurgency, now have another guerrilla outfit rivalling them for control of power, in the event that President Charles Taylor’s government in Monrovia is toppled. That group is called the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL).

West African leaders, who have been mediating in the conflict by bringing together leaders of the warring factions for talks in Ghana, are yet to get a breakthrough.

A cease-fire agreement is yet to be signed between the rival parties as rebels renew their demand for the resignation of President Taylor.

"If I resign there will be a power vacuum and that will plunge Liberia and the entire sub-region into chaos," Taylor warned.

Taylor’s problems are not only domestic but he is also facing an indictment from the UN-backed special war crimes.

His latest offer of concession is that he would abdicate office if the court’s indictment is dropped and he is allowed to live in peace. He was indicted early this month for "bearing the greatest responsibility for horrific atrocities" committed during Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war, which ended in 2001. Taylor is believed to be the main backer of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone.

With no end in sight to the Liberian conflict, the authorities in Sierra Leone are bracing themselves for the influx of refugees from their beleaguered neighbour. Officials of the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) say they are preparing for the inevitable.

"Liberians are our brothers and sisters. We are always ready to welcome and accommodate them, even though we have tremendous constraints," a NaCSA official told IPS on Monday.

More than 100,000 Sierra Leonean refugees are also in Liberia waiting to be repatriated. They fled the civil war in their country and have been living in refugee camps there.

Patrick Foya, Sierra Leone’s ambassador to Liberia, says his government, while preparing for the influx of refugees from Liberia, is also making plans to bring home its own nationals.

"Our government has held talks with the UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration to find ways of repatriating Sierra Leoneans," Foya told IPS on Monday.

He said his government’s priority was to ensure that Sierra Leoneans in Liberia were protected and, eventually, repatriated. "As for Liberians entering this country, we will give them protection and encamp them," he said.

Ordinary Sierra Leoneans are worried that the influx of the refugees may be a catalyst for the spillover of the Liberian conflict into Sierra Leone.

"I am worried that these Liberians are not all genuine refugees," says Marie Kamara, a 40-year-old housewife in the capital Freetown. "Our own war which started in 1991 was a spillover from Liberia. So we have to be careful."

Moses Jones, a teacher, based in Freetown, also says: "We, Sierra Leoneans, forget history too quickly. Weren’t these same Liberians responsible for the war in our country? We should watch them carefully."

In the meantime, the UNHCR has warned of dire humanitarian crisis should the Liberian conflict continue.

The latest fighting in Liberia’s long history of conflicts began in 1999 when the LURD accused Taylor of dictatorship and launched a rebellion in the north which has spread to 11 of the country’s 15 regions.

The fighting has affected half of the country’s estimated three million people, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Liberia also hosts around 17,000 Sierra Leone refugees, at least 38,000 Ivorian refugees and nearly 44,000 returning Liberians who fled the conflict in neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire. These too have been endangered by the fighting.

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