Thousands of sierra leoneans who had taken refuge in Southern Guinea, and have found themselves trapped in the "Parrot’s Beak" region, close to Gueguedou, tried to flee the region in an effort to escape the fighting. Since January 2001, nearly half of the 140,000 people who had fled to the area have either moved on to seek refuge in Guinea’s interior regions or returned to their own country. Fifty refugees arrive each day in the town of Kenema, in the south of Sierra...
more »Thousands of sierra leoneans who had taken refuge in Southern Guinea, and have found themselves trapped in the "Parrot’s Beak" region, close to Gueguedou, tried to flee the region in an effort to escape the fighting. Since January 2001, nearly half of the 140,000 people who had fled to the area have either moved on to seek refuge in Guinea’s interior regions or returned to their own country. Fifty refugees arrive each day in the town of Kenema, in the south of Sierra Leone, where an Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) team is present. Over the past few weeks, a total of 5,000 people have been registered there.The "Parrot’s Beak" region (a Guinean territory known in French as "La Langue de Gueguedou," located on the Guinea border, between Liberia and Sierra Leone), where they found refuge, has been the scene of fierce fighting for several months. Fifty thousand refugees in the region have suffered harassment at the hands of the various armed factions and are at risk of being caught in the crossfire. Many of these refugees have left family members behind. However, MSF requested that those who did return of their own accord, because they had no alternative, be accorded the protection and assistance to which they were legally entitled. On several occasions, MSF had asked UNHCR (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and the local authorities to ensure protection of the refugees trapped in southern Guinea, by transferring them to more secure regions in the north of the country, where camps have already been set up by MSF and other agencies. In early may, trucks were finaly organised to bring refugees out of Parrot's beak to transit camps, where MSF and other organisations provided medical care and water and sanitation services. The refugees then moved to relocation camps near the towns of Albaderia and Dabola.
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