Guinea refugee 'catastrophe'

By Mark Doyle in Kissidougou, Guinea

A senior United Nations refugee agency official on a visit to southern Guinea has described the situation facing the refugees as a catastrophe.

Some quarter of a million people who fled wars in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia are trapped between armed factions in southern Guinea, where the borders of the three countries meet and Guinean rebels are battling government forces.

The senior UNHCR official in West Africa, Abu Moussa, is visiting Guinea trying to resolve what they describe as the most dramatic refugee crisis they face anywhere in the world.

The refugees cannot return home because of rebel positions behind them and they cannot yet go further into safe areas of Guinea, because the Guinea authorities suspect large population movements might mask rebel manoeuvres.

Some of the refugees trapped in the border area have not received food aid for five months and they are increasingly falling prey to armed men from all sides in the conflict.

Hellish scene

When I visited one of the refugee camps in the border area I saw a hellish situation where terrified people were having fist fights over dwindling food supplies.

Meanwhile, armed militia men allied to the Guinea Government side in the war, swaggered around the camp taking some of the already insufficient supplies.

The refugees said they were desperate to go home.

Senior UN officials said they were trying to move the refugees further inside Guinea to safe areas, but the negotiations to achieve this are slow and time is running out for the people trapped between armed men.