www.ghanaweb.com: General News of Saturday, 02
March 2002
....At Least 10,000 Refugees Have Fled, Says UNHCR
At least 10,000 Liberian refugees have fled their country for Sierra Leone following recent fighting between government and rebels, while others fled to Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana.
UNHCR's regional director for West Africa, Abou Moussa, told IRIN that "1,139 Liberians have been received in Ghana" since the beginning of the latest upheavals in Liberia. According to UNHCR-Ghana, the majority were people who had lived in Ghana before.
UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said on Friday, that in Sierra Leone, the
arrivals were being relocated from the border town of Jendema to camps farther
inside the country. Some 2,029 refugees had been relocated, but convoys
continued to bring more daily, the spokesman said.
On Tuesday, Janowski
had said some 300-500 people had been arriving daily in Sierra Leone from
Liberia. He said most originated from Lofa County in northern Liberia, and that
they had already been displaced several times before the latest clashes forced
them across the border.
People fleeing east towards the Ivorian border,
according to humanitarian sources, were largely worried the fighting might reach
the capital. The Ivorian Red Cross reported that 1,895 Liberians entered Cote
d'Ivoire from 19 to 24 February. Between 11 and 28 February, UNCHR also
registered 907 arrivals in Cote d'Ivoire, according to figures provided to IRIN
by the refugee agency, bringing the number registered in Cote d'Ivoire since
April 2001 to 8,943.
UNHCR reported the refugees as saying that young men
were being forced to join the pro-government forces. They also told the UN
agency that they had to do barter deals with security forces in order to reach
the border. Not all of them stay in Cote d'Ivoire.