Refugees in Guinea challenge to UN

The United Nations Refugee Agency has described its aid operation in Guinea as its most dramatic and difficult world wide.

Guinea is hosting hundreds-of-thousands of refugees fleeing conflicts in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Since early December, they've been stranded without food or medical supplies.

Many children are malnourished.

The UN is sending an emergency team to ease what it calls their desperate situation.

The BBC Geneva correspondent says many of the refugees are begging the UN to help them return to Sierra Leone.

Fear of rebel attacks and hostility from Guineans who blame the refugees for provoking the attacks has fuelled their wish to go home.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service