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MONROVIA, 24 August 1999 (IRIN) - Insecurity in Lofa County in north-western Liberia is a major setback for programmes that target Liberian returnees and Sierra Leonean refugees, a UNHCR official told IRIN.
The fighting that broke out in Lofa some two weeks ago between government troops and rebels is affecting the Liberian refugee repatriation programme and the Sierra Leonean refugee care and maintenance programme, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Liberia, Ebou Camara, said.
"Everything that we need for the Sierra Leonean refugee care and maintenance programme has been looted," Camara told IRIN in Monrovia on Saturday. "Vehicles have been commandeered, the refugee camp infrastructure in Kolahun dismantled, offices of our implementing partners have been looted, all supplies and equipment are gone."
Preliminary reports also indicate that WFP has had some 800 mt of food looted from Kolahun since the fighting broke out on 11 August. The WFP's regional information officer in Abidjan, Wagdi Othman, told IRIN that WFP had heard reports of extensive looting in the area but could not confirm that its food had been stolen since it had no one in Kolahun.
A one-day UNHCR assessment on 20 August to Bo Waterside, located northwest of Monrovia and on the border with Sierra Leone, revealed that no Sierra Leonean refugees had moved into the area from Upper Lofa.
There are 89,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia, 48,000 of whom are in Lofa County, according to UNHCR's most recent figures.
In addition to the lack of security there are also serious logistical constraints to mounting an effective relief operation in Upper Lofa County as the roads there are very bad, especially now, at the height of the rainy season.
"It is out of the question to take relief supplies into Upper Lofa by road through Voinjama," Alexander Kulue, executive director of the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission, told IRIN in Monrovia on Saturday.
"One possible solution would be to airlift food into Kolahun," Kulue told IRIN, "but that can only be done when we are sure of the security situation there."
It is also unclear what impact the events in Lofa will have on the Liberian refugee repatriation programme. Kulue told IRIN that a convoy was scheduled to transfer Liberian refugees from Cote d'Ivoire into Liberia on 26 August.
"We will have to get security clearance from the Ministry of Defence and ask UNHCR whether we should go ahead," Kulue told IRIN.
The effect of the fighting on former Liberian refugees who have already repatriated to Lofa is also unknown. "We do not know whether they will leave or sit around and wait," Camara told IRIN. "The borders are porous and some may already have gone back to Guinea."
As at 12 August, some 334,000 of the estimated 480,000 Liberians who fled the country during the war had returned. About half of the returning refugees went to Lofa County, according to UNHCR.
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Item: irin-english-1472
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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