SIERRA LEONE-POPULATION: Displaced Start The Trek Towards Home

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Jan 28 1997 (IPS) - The government of Sierra Leone has embarked on a repatriation programme to return thousands of internally displaced persons to their homes.

The exercise started last weekend, and according to estimates, a few thousand have already made the journey to the southern and south-eastern parts of the country.

“Several non-government organisations are already on the ground and they have expressed a willingness to assist the returnees in the areas of medical treatment and provision of food supplies,” says Kenja Sesay, the deputy minister of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement.

AFRICARE, the World Food Programme (WFP), Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and CARE, among other NGOs, will also provide the returnees with tools to resume their farming and other profit- making ventures once they return home, Sesay says.

“Camps in the western area that are involved in the exercise are the Old Fourah Bay College Camp at Cline Town, Ross Road Camp, Clay Factory Camp, which are all in Freetown, plus Grafton and Waterloo camps,” says Osman Serry Turay, an official who helped to coordinate the repatriation exercise.

According to Turay, some of the towns the displaced are returning to include Bo, Kenema, Bonthe, Mattru Jong, Pujehun and Kailahun, which are all located in the south and south-eastern provinces.

The exercise however has received mixed reactions from the displaced people themselves, many of whom are uncertain about returning to homes that were destroyed during the six-year civil war.

“I am not at all happy going home. I was sort of a well-to-do farmer in Moyamba, had a home with my family in tact,” says Thomas Konneh. “The rebels stormed the town, abducted some members of my family and burnt our house. Where am I going to start?”

Marie Lomeh, a widow, expressed similar sentiments. “I lost my husband in the war, our farm was burnt and our property looted by the marauding rebels. I only hope the authorities assist us in picking up the pieces,” Lomeh says.

But others are happy to finally leave the camps and to return to their own birthplaces, even though the memories are sad.

“I was born in Pujehun. I was held captive by the rebels for two months, my property looted, my daughter raped and I was starved,” says Mariama Massaquoi. “Yet inspite of all that, I can’t wait to return home. For me, there’s no place like home.”

Out of a population of four million, about one million people were displaced by the six-year conflict between government forces and the opposition Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Estimates of the number of Sierra Leoneans killed ranged from 10,000 to 20,000.

A peace agreement signed on November 30, 1996 by the RUF and the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, the demobilisation and disarmament of the RUF and its integration into the national army.

Although there have been several outbreaks of violence since the pact was signed, the government says a semblance of calm has returned to the south and south-eastern provinces.

The security situation in the north however is still unstable. Days after the November peace accord was signed, for example, the villages of Kubehuna and Magbenka in Tonkolili District, Northern Province, were attacked by unidentified armed men.

More than 150 civilians were brutally mutilated and killed in the attack. The villagers, who had been forced to flee because of the conflict, had just started to return to their homes.

“I have visited areas in the North and the indications are that the security situation may not allow us to repatriate these people only for them to face the organised banditry prevailing there,” deputy minister Sesay says.

But Samuel Conteh, a coordinator of the northern displaced, says that people from the north should be given the choice to return home.

“I think the northern displaced should also be given the opportunity to return to their towns and villages. They have been holed up in their run-down camps with no future,” Conteh says. “I think it is better for our people to return now.”

The ‘Expo Times’ newspaper in this week’s edition however says that the government should have adopted a more cautious strategy before embarking on the repatriation programme.

“As we wait for disarmament and demobilisation, we should be cautious in the way we are sending people back to their towns and villages,” the paper opined.

But despite reported skirmishes, the government and RUF rebels appear committed to the steps outlined in the November peace accord. Members of the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP), which is responsible for the implementation of the accord, have started a tour of RUF locations in the country’s interior.

According to some observers, the tour of the commission, which comprises RUF and government officials, and independent observers, may put an end to the sporadic fighting.