Guinea crisis 'worst in world'

The refugees are trapped between warring factions

The United Nations refugee agency says that the security situation in southern Guinea is deteriorating on a daily basis.

The UNHCR now describes the situation as the most dramatic faced by the agency anywhere in the world.

A UNHCR spokesman in Guinea, Peter Kessler, told the BBC that 250,000 refugees lie trapped in the area where the army and rebels are battling for control.

No food aid has reached the area around the town of Gueckedou for four months, and the last aid workers were forced to withdraw over a week ago as the fighting intensified.

There are reports of heavy gunfire and a renewed rebel attack on the area along the border with Liberia.

Truckloads of Guinean soldiers were seen heading towards Gueckedou to try to expel the insurgents.

Anarchy

The refugees caught between the warring factions had fled into Guinea to avoid other regional conflicts, now they are forced to run for their lives once again.

Access for aid workers is extremely dangerous, and in large parts of the border region law and order has broken down completely.

The borders of three countries join around Gueckedou and all three - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - are in a state of political and military turmoil.

The rebels fighting the Guinea army are believed to be a mixture of Guinean dissidents and mercenaries from Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Sending in troops

The chaos in the area is so severe that many of the Sierra Leonean refugees there say they would rather return to their own country, which has itself been described by the UN as one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Plans are now being drawn up for regional countries to send 1,600 peacekeeping troops to the area in the coming weeks.

But the UNHCR says that in the meantime, hundreds of thousands of civilians are having to move across a region where there is no security.