Aid finally delivered to Guinean refugees

Aid agencies in West Africa have finally begun distributing emergency food supplies to tens of thousands of refugees trapped in southern Guinea.

They've been without help for up to six months in an area described by the BBC West Africa correspondent as one of the most dangerous places on earth.

At least six armed factions are operating there.

A convoy of trucks carrying cereals and cooking oil reached the refugees in a part of Guinea known as the Parrot's Beak, where the country shares borders with the other conflict-ridden states of Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Some one-hundred-and-forty-thousand refugees, mostly from Sierra Leone, are either too weak to escape fighting between Guinean government troops and rebels, or are being prevented from moving by the armed factions. Our correspondent says today's convoy will feed only a few thousand people, and there's a constant danger that the aid effort will be halted by fresh fighting.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service