By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Jul 14 2003 (IPS)

”Thank God for arriving home safely,” says 20-year-old Emerson Fowai, who was among 360 Sierra Leoneans evacuated from war-torn Liberia last week.

”I lived in Liberia for ten years and had seen that country as home, but thought the current state of insecurity is too much for me to stay on,” Fowai, who was in high school in Monrovia, adds.

Mariama Koroma, a mother of three, also returned home after eight years as a refugee in Liberia. ”I am so happy for being rescued from that death trap (Monrovia). I saw death and destruction in last month’s street battles between rebel forces and government troops. I do not want to be caught up once again.”

The UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) commenced the repatriation of Sierra Leonean refugees from Liberia last week. And, so far, close to 700 have been transported in two batches.

”There are about 36,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia. So far 5,000 have registered with our office in Monrovia for repatriation,” says UNHCR’s senior logistics officer Maggie Heraty.

A Danish ship MV Overbeck is on hire for the repatriation exercise and UNHCR officials say the exercise may last two months.

The majority of the returnees were women and children. They spent two nights on the high seas and reportedly encountered fierce weather conditions. Some went down with cold and flu. A good number of the children looked malnourished, some unaccompanied.

Philips Kamara, an official of the international Child Protection Agency Cooperation International (COPI), told IPS last week at the seaport where the ship docked with the returnees: ”we screen the children and identify those who are unaccompanied. We then put them in an interim care centre and attend to their needs.”

As for adults, a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) harmonise their strategies and resources in order to resettle them. Those living in the provinces are transported to their respective home towns and villages. ”They are provided with food and non-food items as a way of starting a new life,” says Heraty.

Many of the refugees, mainly from the VOA camp near Monrovia, say they fled to Liberia some six to ten years ago to escape conflict in Sierra Leone. VOA is one of the four refugee camps in Monrovia, which together hosted 15,000 Sierra Leonean refugees before the latest round of fighting.

According to UNHCR officials, the sprawling VOA site is largely deserted, with many of the former residents still holed up along with displaced Liberians in various embassies, UN compounds, schools and churches in the besieged Liberian capital.

The desire of the refugees to return home may be connected with the pullout of UN and international NGO aid workers on Jun. 9 following the worsening of the security situation in Monrovia. ”We were living in extremely difficult conditions and received virtually no assistance from aid agencies. It was imperative for us, therefore, to leave,” father of six children, Momoh Kawa, laments.

With fighting having subsided in Liberia itself, it seems humanitarian aid has began trickling in, but a feeling of insecurity continues to put people on the edge. Many fear a resumption of hostilities even though there is hope that a regional military force backed by the Americans may help stabilise the situation.

Sierra Leonean government officials are keen on having their nationals evacuated from Liberia. Last month, as fighting closed in on Monrovia, Sierra Leone’s ambassador to that beleaguered country Patrick Foyah, told IPS his government was holding discussions with groups like the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the UN refugee agency to facilitate the repatriation of Sierra Leoneans from Liberia.

An official from Sierra Leone’s National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA), the agency dealing with resettlement issues, told IPS on Jul. 11 the government is currently dealing with the problem of returnees.

”The government, through NaCSA, is helping the returnees with shelter and basic items to enable them re-start their lives,” the official said.

Meanwhile, Sierra Leoneans are bracing themselves for the return of their compatriots, as well as Liberian refugees who want to leave their country.

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